


To Homefelt Pleasures and to Gentle Scenes

by katiemickgee



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Penny Dreadful - Freeform, Pre-Series, basically a rewrite of the entire series, no regrets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:29:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 24,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7318909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiemickgee/pseuds/katiemickgee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night before her wedding, Mina Murray awakes to find her dashing fiancé with his hands around her best friend's throat. Mina kills him to save Vanessa — and so the friends enter together into the demimonde.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh gosh, I don't even know — I was rewatching season 1 to wash away the pain of the finale when two things occurred: 1) it struck me how different one moment before the series even began could have made the entire story; and 2) I fell for precious cinnamon roll Peter Murray, and hard. 
> 
> So here we are. Let me know what you think.

_And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws_  
_His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause:_  
_This is the happy Warrior; this is he_  
_That every man in arms should wish to be._  
—William Wordsworth, “Character of the Happy Warrior”

1.  
**1883**

_Now, child._

Vanessa’s eyes sprang open in the wee hours of the morning that marked the wedding day of her oldest friend. She shared Mina’s bed, the last time she would before Captain Branson took her place, and she’d fallen asleep with one arm thrown protectively over Mina’s shoulders, her chest pressed to Mina’s back. 

Mina slept on, unaware of any disturbance in the night, and Vanessa could almost convince herself that the words in her head were only the fading remnants of a nightmare. But she felt a need—a desperate pull, claws digging into her soul and preparing to drag her into the abyss—to go where the voice directed. No matter how tightly she shut her eyes or how she let the mingled sound of Mina’s gentle exhale and the rain pattering insistently against the windowpane drown out all else, Vanessa could not ignore the command. 

She had not yet identified the speaker, though she had her suspicions. It had been years of phantom figures and waking nightmares, beginning with the awful, complicating scene she’d witnessed in the hedge maze as a girl, culminating in a mischievous adolescence of petty thievery. It seemed that with maturity would come darker impulses, more difficult to ignore or to explain away. She couldn’t deny the calls when they came, but maybe this time, if she followed, she could find the one who so desperately wanted her, and put an end to her torment.

Carefully, Vanessa leaned over to press her lips to Mina’s cheek. She unwound herself from her bedmate and the bed linens, and then climbed soundlessly from under the blankets. She pulled on her robe and slippers and eased open Mina’s bedroom door, then allowed herself to be led down the stairs by unseen hands, and thrown directly into the path of Mina’s fiancé, Charles Branson.

He emerged from the parlor, brandy glass in hand, and started at the sight of her. Still, ever the gentleman, he managed a polite smile, which Vanessa returned. The dragging sensation grew stronger; she was meant to be on this collision course with Branson, though she could not yet fathom why.

“You’ve found me out,” he said, holding up the brandy as if in salute, then gently fingering the base. “Last night of freedom, eh?”

Vanessa looked at the floor, making note of his boots—still on his feet, freshly polished, holding him ramrod straight after even what smelled like half a decanter of brandy. She brought her eyes back to his face and wasn’t sure what she saw. 

_**Now** , child._

“Would you like to see something interesting?” she asked Branson. It was as if something had welled up within her and spilled out without her ever having meant to make a sound. She paused, waiting, laying out an invitation—a temptation—and then turned away with a serene smile still on her face. She didn’t want this, but the speaker in her mind most certainly did. Vanessa felt Branson’s eyes on her back, and the thing with the claws in her soul was pleased when, after a moment’s hesitation, Branson followed.

Vanessa went directly to the playroom—that was always how the family had referred to it, anyway, though some may have taken one look at the animal carcasses awaiting their second lives and deemed it a house of horrors. She preened as she studied the predators she’d brought to life, the proud falcons with gleaming talons that had been hers since she was young. In the gloom of the storm, punctuated by occasional lightning strikes and the low rumble of thunder in the distance, every creature in the room could be alive, waiting to strike.

Her pride faltered when Branson followed her in and gave a small chuckle of surprise, entirely uninterested in her creatures. “No…my Mina?”

“Your Mina,” Vanessa confirmed, just a drop of acid in her words as she ran her fingers over the pelts and feathers of the nearest works-in-progress. “Although you’ll be relieved to know she only worked with the most…pacific of animals.” She picked up a rodent with a fat tail and held it up for Branson to admire. “This is her squirrel.”

Branson paused to scoff at the absurdity of the ugly little creature. “Which are yours?” he asked, clutching the brandy glass in his fist.

“Not the docile ones,” Vanessa assured him with a smile, setting the squirrel down.

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

Branson took another long draught of brandy, and Vanessa would have gladly ignored his presence in the room entirely, if the tugging at her soul wasn’t drawing her toward him. But she wouldn’t give in so easily. She paused before her favorite bird of prey, caressing the individual feathers of a wing as a mother would run her thumb over the cheek of a treasured child.

“I’ve always felt you have to name a thing before it comes to life,” she mused aloud, “like a witch’s spell.” She felt Branson creeping closer, unable to quite make him out in the shadows. She focused on the bird and said, “His name is Ariel.”

She came around the workbench so that she was standing beside Captain Branson, and crouched before her finest work. She felt she was being rather loose-tongued, but as Branson had yet to make an objection, she continued to speak. “The most challenging bit is the eyes. They’re glass, of course, so by nature are dead and dull. But that wouldn’t do for my great predator. So I put mirrors behind the glass eyes, so they would spark. You see?”

Vanessa’s view was entirely taken up by Ariel’s face, the eyes indeed sparking in the bursts of light from the storm outside. But she was aware of Branson, too, leaned over to study her handiwork, and perhaps to study her, his breath laden with brandy, and something in him, something deeper than the simplicity of his being a man and her being a woman, drawing them together.

“I see,” he said, his voice rough—not with drink, but something darker. “They’re alive.”

Vanessa smiled at this, elated that someone finally understood. “They are,” she whispered in reply.

His hand was on her shoulder; she wasn’t sure when that had happened. Suddenly, she was turned toward him, his brandy abandoned on the workbench, both of his hands on her face, cupping her jaw and drawing her close, and whispering, “I would put mirrors behind the entire world if I could, and bring life to all the dead things that lay wasting away in the ground.”

There was a spark. It was only lightning—it had to be—but it felt as if the world had gone up in flames and been thrown from its axis. Branson’s lips were on hers, tentative at first, almost careful for the first few beats of her heart, and then hungrier, angrier. His hands on her face were calloused and his grip was absolute. He pressed himself close and Vanessa opened her eyes, beating her fists on his shoulders without effect. She swung one leg back and aimed a kick at his kneecap, but managed only to connect with the solid oak of the workbench. Animals rattled; the squirrel wobbled and fell to the floor, along with some of its brethren and a few glass jars. Supplies scattered across the tabletop.

At last, he let her go. But he had one hand wrapped around her neck and the other on her hip, trapping her at arm’s length. He smiled cruelly, and when he opened his eyes, they were black as pitch. She thought it had to be a trick of the nightmarish night, but the next flash of lightning lit his face brilliantly and revealed it to be true.

“Dead and dull, darling, yes?” he rasped in a voice that was both Branson’s and wasn’t. “We’ve been waiting for you, Mother—the goddess who can put the spark back into our soulless eyes.”

“What are you?” Vanessa managed to gasp, clawing at the fingers about her neck.

“I matter not,” Branson said, and then lifted her just an inch off the ground, as easily as a child would a doll. Vanessa’s throat throbbed as she tried in vain to choke down air. Branson held her face up to his and grinned. “The Master is waiting.”

“Van—?”

Branson turned at the sound of Mina’s voice. Vanessa looked past his shoulder and reached out a hand to her friend, trying to indicate that Mina should flee, but Mina stood frozen in the playroom doorway. Vanessa couldn’t even summon the air to warn Mina away, so she flailed her arm for a moment before returning her grip to Branson’s arm, trying to hold herself up to keep from choking to death. Already, the world seemed darker than it had been only moments before.

Branson’s grin widened, so giddy that he looked nearly mad. “My Mina,” he cooed. “Don’t worry, darling. Your time will come.”

There came the cock of a pistol, and Vanessa blinked hard to banish the shadows at the edges of her vision. Mina’s arm was raised, and though her face was twisted with fright, her grip was firm and her aim was sure. She held one of her father’s revolvers, a memento from one of his first African expeditions, and she had it trained on Branson’s nose.

“Mina—don’t…” Vanessa choked, struggling against Branson’s grasp anew.

Branson, in turn, gave a short bark of a laugh. “Shoot me, then, Mina mine. I shall be glad to die knowing I’ve made you a murderess.”

“Let her go,” Mina said. Her voice was as cold as the smooth glass behind Ariel’s eyes. Outside, the storm reached a fever pitch—Vanessa could hear the waves pounding the sand below the house, and the rain thundered against the windows. The wind howled.

There was another spark, a light so blinding and a sound so thunderous that Vanessa was sure it was the end of all she had ever known. Then, all in a rush, the world went dark and she felt herself falling. She hit the wooden floor of the playroom hard, and though stunned, she raised her head enough to take in the shadowed scene. Mina stood with her pistol raised, a delicate curl of smoke rising from the hot barrel. Branson lingered on his feet for a moment, long enough for a drop of scarlet blood to fall onto his shiny boots, and then crumpled on the floor before her, dead.

Vanessa heard Mina calling her name, though from just across the room or across the veil of life and death she couldn’t know. And then Mina was there, pressing her lips to Vanessa’s forehead, shouting for help, cradling her fallen friend and running a soft finger over the bruises Branson had left around her neck. Peter arrived next, his face swimming into Vanessa’s view for a moment and then away again. Footsteps hurried down the main staircase and the playroom filled with feet, with anxious voices, and with the light of a lamp. Vanessa shut her eyes and left the rest of it for the others to sort out.

_Soon, child. Soon._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa awakes from a deep sleep to confess a truth to Mina.

2.

When Vanessa awoke, the sun was low in the sky, though she couldn’t quite make out if it was rising or falling. It took only a moment for her to identify her surroundings as one of the Murray guest rooms, though she couldn’t know how long she’d been asleep in the spare bed. The sheet and fleece blanket were pulled up to her chest, her hands neatly arranged on top of the blanket as if she’d been laid out for a memorial service. She’d slept like the dead, then, unmoving.

She tried to sit up and found it too strenuous, so she merely rolled onto her left side and stared out the window. The faint sunlight made her eyes sting after a moment, so she closed them again, pulling the blanket up over her shoulder and burrowing her face into the ball of fabric clutched in her fists. Her head throbbed in time with her heart. Her throat ached, inside and out. She raised one shaking hand and gingerly prodded at the skin of her neck, wincing when her finger came into contact with the tender flesh.

So it had actually happened: the unknown voice had summoned her from her bed for one nefarious purpose or other; Captain Branson had attacked; Mina had killed him.

“Mina,” Vanessa said, clear and loud, and her own voice frightened her. Her eyes opened again to a room filled with darkness. She had apparently fallen back into her deep sleep, overwhelmed by the memory of that earlier trauma.

The bedroom door opened and with a rush of fabric and bare feet on hardwood floor, Mina was there. Vanessa rolled onto her back and managed to sit up this time, taking in the sight of her best friend in the half-light. The room’s curtains still hung partly open open, and it was a full moon outside, light enough to see by and the perfect contrast to the raging storm of the previous night.

Mina wore only her nightgown, as she had apparently rushed to Vanessa’s bedside, and her hair was disheveled by anxious sleep. Dark shadows hung under her eyes.

Vanessa grasped for Mina’s hands, and the two young women locked both of their hands together. Mina’s smile, when it appeared, was tight with concern. “Oh, Van—we were so worried. Are you all right?”

“Are you all right?” Vanessa replied. Her voice was rough with disuse, now that she was attempting to form a complete, coherent thought. She squeezed Mina’s hands in both of hers and added, “The captain?”

“Charles is dead,” Mina said gently, then extracted one hand to rest it on Vanessa’s cheek. “He won’t hurt you again.”

“You shot him,” Vanessa said, partly to remind herself and partly to prompt Mina’s explanation.

Her friend glanced away, studying the shadows gathered in the corner of the room. “He was hurting you.”

“But are you all right?”

Mina sighed. “I’m alive—and so are you. Anything else will heal, in time.”

After another moment of silence and some more gentle coaxing, Vanessa was able to extract the story from Mina. Vanessa was surprised to learn that she had fallen into a deep sleep immediately following what Mina would refer to only as “the incident”—and that had been over two days ago. Vanessa nearly made a joking apology about sleeping through Mina’s wedding day, but as the bride-to-be had murdered her bridegroom with her father’s revolver only the night before the blessed event was set to occur, she felt it wouldn’t come across quite as clever as she’d originally thought.

A constable had been summoned the night of the incident, though it had taken him over an hour to arrive. By then, Vanessa had been moved up to this very room and a distant Murray cousin who was a doctor by trade had seen to her care. Mr. Andrews, the butler, ushered the rest of the Murrays’ houseguests into the parlor and Gladys offered tea or brandy, while Sir Malcolm locked the playroom up, with the rapidly cooling corpse of his almost-son-in-law still inside. He then sought out Mina, who was sitting quietly with Peter on the staircase, in shock. She was still holding the gun and wouldn’t speak, though slow tears leaked from her eyes, moving carefully over her skin as if to avoid disturbing her. 

(Other than this instance, Mina would not speak of her grief or expound upon the ways in which it might have manifested itself in the two days since her fiancé’s demise. Vanessa didn’t press the matter.)

Malcolm sent Peter to collect Mr. and Mrs. Ives from next door, and then urged Mina to tell him her story before the constable arrived. Her honest tale seemed to satisfy her father, who encouraged her to tell it exactly the same way to the police. As Mina told it, she was awoken by a noise from downstairs—she had thought it was the storm, but then had realized Vanessa was gone and became worried. She saw the lights still on in the parlor but saw only the abandoned brandy decanter on an end table, and so she had collected her father’s old gun from its place of honor on the wall over the mantle and followed the sounds of voices and struggle to the playroom. 

She had seen her friend in danger and, fearing for both their lives, had shot Captain Charles Branson directly through the bridge of his nose. He was dead before he knew it. He would be buried early the following week.

“What was he, Van?” Mina finished in a whisper, trembling with the strain of the retelling. “I couldn’t believe what I saw, when I saw his hand on your neck, but when he turned to me…his eyes…”

Vanessa sunk deeper into the bed and beckoned Mina closer. Mina climbed gingerly beneath the blanket and huddled close to her friend.

Vanessa explained as best she could. “I don’t know what that was, but it was something inside Charles—a monster, perhaps. A force. A demon. 

“Mina, there is something I’ve never revealed to you, largely because I’ve never entirely understood it myself. But for many years—since we were children—I’ve suspected that I am haunted by a malignant spirit.”

Mina raised herself up on one elbow to better study Vanessa’s face. Vanessa saw not incredulity in her friend’s wide eyes, as she had feared she might. She saw only shock and incomprehension, and something in the set of Mina’s jaw that told Vanessa that she believed every word and was determined to set things right.

“Do you know what it is,” Mina asked, “this spirit?”

“I can only guess. But I know it’s something…dark. And serious. It means to do people harm. It threatens to overwhelm me; it came very close to doing so two nights ago. I fear that without your intervention, something far worse may have happened.”

Mina lowered her head to Vanessa’s shoulder, resting one arm gently over her friend’s stomach. “Worse than murder?” Mina said, her voice as small as a child’s.

Vanessa put her hand on Mina’s wrist, keeping her close. “Far worse,” she whispered to the ceiling. “The destruction of souls. The beginning of the end. And I fear I would have been the very heart of it all.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa, still recuperating from Captain Branson's attack, has some explaining to do.

3.

The following morning, Gladys Murray carried a small platter laden with a sampling of the family’s morning meal and a strong cup of tea up to Vanessa’s room herself. She perched on the edge of the bed and watched Vanessa eat for a time, making only small comments on the weather and the state of the household, and Vanessa was grateful for the company and the mindless conversation. She scooped out part of a hardboiled egg and made quick work of the tea, but was glad when a maid returned a short time after Gladys had gone to collect the dishes and the remainder of the uneaten meal.

Both of the Murray heads of household reappeared later that morning, accompanied by Gordon and Claire Ives and a man from the constabulary, who introduced himself as Constable Bartholomew Rusk. Vanessa’s mother made a fuss over her for the first few minutes, until finally settling into a chair at her bedside and clasping one of Vanessa’s hands in both of hers. Her father gave her a quick kiss on the top of the head before retreating to stand by the window. Gladys sat primly in a chair across the bed from Claire, smoothing out the patch of blanket before her. Malcolm stood beside Rusk and watched the scene play out, his face studiously blank.

“Miss Ives, I’m sorry to intrude on your recuperation,” Rusk began, taking a notepad and pencil from his coat pocket, “but there are just a few more inquiries to be made before we can close our investigation into Captain Branson’s death.”

“Of course, Constable,” Vanessa replied. Her throat did not feel as raw as it had, probably thanks to Gladys’ tea, and her voice sounded stronger. She’d bathed quickly after breakfast and taken the time to brush and braid her hair, and though she still wore the uniform of the invalid—a dressing gown over a nightgown, tucked into bed with orders only to rest—the only outward signs that anything had happened to her were the shadows in her eyes and the vivid navy and violet bruises, just the size and shape of a grown man’s fingers, that ringed her pale neck.

Rusk consulted his notes. “Your friend Miss Murray told my colleague that she came downstairs because she heard a struggle of some kind. What interests me, Miss Ives—all of us, really—is what brought you down to the ground floor in the first place.”

She had worked through this part already with Mina. Vanessa hadn’t been able to bring herself to explain to her best friend the force that had pulled her downstairs toward her fiancé, so she’d concocted a plausible substitution. 

“The storm woke me,” she said. “I usually enjoy them, but I think perhaps I was a bit on edge, with the excitement of Mina’s wedding this weekend. I couldn’t sleep, and rather than wake Mina, I decided to help myself to a glass of water, or perhaps some tea, in the kitchen.”

“But you never made it to the kitchen.”

Vanessa shook her head. “Not at first. I saw the light in the parlor as I came down the stairs, and then Charles—Captain Branson—walked out. We startled each other, but then we exchanged a few words and I moved off.”

“What, exactly, did you speak of?”

“He’d been drinking. He noted that it was his ‘last night of freedom’—his words.”

“What brought you both into the solarium?”

Vanessa paused. She’d only ever heard the playroom referred to in such a grand manner by the adults in her life—she’d never heard the word spoken by a stranger. 

She collected her thoughts and continued, “I went to the kitchen and helped myself to a glass of water, and it seemed to help settle my nerves. I watched the storm through the back window for a moment, and then felt ready to return to bed. I was walking down the hall back toward the stairs when I came across Captain Branson in the playroom—the solarium.”

“Playroom?” Rusk echoed, and a faint smile came to his lips. “Rather interesting toys.”

“We’ve always thought we were rather interesting children,” Vanessa replied with an easy smirk. “Anyhow, Captain Branson expressed shock at Mina’s taxidermy hobby, and I obliged him by giving him a brief tour of the room and showing him some of her work. I’m not sure what happened to provoke him, what I might have said or done, but he suddenly…grabbed me…” It was only necessary for Vanessa to half-act her fragile emotional state. She paused and brought a hand to her mouth, unable to speak further on the subject.

Sir Malcolm stepped forward. “I think that’s quite enough, Constable. You can see that Miss Ives is still recovering from the great shock of that evening, and I think it best we end the interview. Might we also consider the matter closed, so that we might all move forward?”

Rusk pondered Vanessa for a beat, but either couldn’t formulate a follow-up question or didn’t dare defy Sir Malcolm by asking one. He turned to his host and gave a small bow. “Of course, sir. Thank you for your time—you’ve all been most helpful.” He nodded to the room, letting his eyes linger on Vanessa once more. “Good day, Miss Ives.”

“Good day, Constable Rusk.”

Sir Malcolm, a polite smile on his face, gestured for the constable to exit the room first. Gladys stood and joined her husband in seeing Rusk out. Vanessa’s mother and father lingered for a few minutes of discussion about her health, and it was decided that she would return home at the weekend, in two days’ time. In truth, Vanessa felt well enough to make the short walk to her own bedroom, but she was reluctant to go, and so agreed to the timeline. In some odd way, she felt as if she were on holiday, lying in bed day and night with unfamiliar servants to wait on her. She was rather enjoying it. And besides, she would have to speak to Mina again about her suspicions, if they had any hope of unraveling the mystery of the strange, seductive voice in her mind and making sense of Captain Branson’s death.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa finds herself pondering Peter Murray.

4.

Vanessa spent most of the remainder of her day revisiting poetry she’d already pored over, but she could find nothing to complain about with the arrangement. She also passed two hours in the early afternoon by playing chess with Peter, who won three games but didn’t gloat about it. They hardly spoke while they played, aside from the occasional exclamation from Vanessa when another of her knights was captured. 

Vanessa was undoubtedly closer to Mina, in the way only female friends could be so close, sharing almost everything and still loving one another dearly. But Peter had been a permanent staple in their shared childhood, and an endless source of amusement and, if Vanessa were to be honest, fascination. She and Peter were the same age, each three years Mina’s senior, and the difference in sex had never proved an insurmountable obstacle in their friendship—until just the week before, when her frustration with being left behind as Mina made her triumphant debut into the adult world bubbled over and Vanessa had placed a rather unfulfilling kiss on Peter’s lips in the hedge maze. 

The symbolism hadn’t escaped her—that she had chosen to inflict this rather poor romantic gesture on Peter on the very site of her mother’s transgression with Sir Malcolm. Neither had Peter’s unequivocal rejection gone misunderstood. It had hurt her deeply—more deeply than she cared to admit—and her heart still ached to have him sitting so near, perched so coolly on the side of her bed, unaware of or uncaring how he’d broken her. 

To an extent, the end of Charles Branson had provided some small solace for Vanessa. She was no closer to understanding the demons that sought shelter in her soul, but at least Mina was as marooned here now as Vanessa would have been had her best friend married. Guilt swept through her whenever she thought of this, but that didn’t make it any less true.

But—Peter. She loved him, as a sister loved a brother, as one friend should admire and cherish another. He had grown from a rather self-important youth into a handsome, rational young man (if a handsome young man sporting an inadequate beard). He still spoke of accompanying Malcolm to Africa, but his words were more wistful dreams than solid plans, a remnant of his childhood that he was reluctant to give away just yet. 

She loved him for the weakness of his body, and for the strength of his soul. She loved him because she thought he loved her, too. It was hard for her to imagine their friendship ever blossoming into the kind of passion that made one’s cheeks flush and loins burn. Dear God, she couldn’t imagine Peter ever getting so worked up about anything, least of all a woman. 

But their great love story had been foretold, or so the gossips in the neighborhood had always said. Born mere weeks apart in neighboring homes, two beautiful children living blessed lives, playing and growing together into the fine young adults who now spent their time alternately debating philosophy in the salon and mock-wrestling on the grounds, well out of their mothers’ lines of sight. They carried on like “savages,” or so Claire Ives was fond of saying when she caught Vanessa, breathless, perched on a low branch in a tree or huddled in a bush, preparing some strike against Peter. 

They teased each other mercilessly and they argued. They went for long walks and, when Peter was feeling gallant, he would offer Vanessa his arm and she would take it and allow him to walk her to her door at the end of a long day. It was the kind of love that could easily last a lifetime—a partnership, true and unwavering.

Though as the minutes ticked by in silent contemplation of the board, without so much as an argument about Peter cheating or an insistence that Vanessa had only let him win their games, Vanessa felt her destiny slipping away. She could have had a perfectly comfortable life with the perfectly ordinary boy next door, and she would have been perfectly content with the state of her affairs. But she’d apparently ruined it with that ill-timed kiss, and now he would hardly look at her.

It was a relief when Peter finally left and Vanessa could return to her poetry until the sun set. Mina appeared at the end of the day to ask if Vanessa might find the strength to join the family at the table for dinner. She agreed, and then followed Mina into her room to borrow an appropriate gown. 

Vanessa watched from the doorway as Mina moved about the room, clearing up a tiny clutter on her vanity and then delving into her closet for a dress, all the time orbiting a new centerpiece in the room: her wedding gown, still awaiting its debut. Vanessa came forward and put a shaking hand on the shoulder of the dressmaker’s mannequin, running her thumb over the lace along the neckline.

She cleared her throat demurely, to catch Mina’s attention, and said, “It’s very pretty. You would have made it beautiful.”

Mina emerged from her closet with a dress and paused. Her cheeks and neck flushed pink with shame. “I can’t bear to pack it away. I still wake up every day, expecting it to be Sunday morning all over again. That the night might have passed without incident and you’ll be there, smiling, when I wake, and all will be as it should have been.”

“I’m so sorry,” Vanessa whispered, and her vision swam with tears. The guilt of her earlier thoughts—how she’d loathed Mina for daring to fall in love, to marry, to begin her life in a far-off land, and leave her behind!—washed over her. “If I hadn’t been here, none of this would have happened.”

Mina hugged the selected gown to her chest and stood silently pondering the floor. “Or perhaps it would have been worse,” she said at last. “Perhaps I would have married a monster.” She held out the dress to Vanessa, who wiped away stray tears and accepted it. “One can never know where another path would have led. But I’m glad I still get to walk this one with you.”

Vanessa draped the gown over the end of Mina’s bed, closed the space between them, and wrapped her arms tight around her friend. Mina’s shoulder dug into her neck and the bruises there ached, but Vanessa ignored it. She felt Mina’s arms encircle her and sagged into the embrace, and they stood and shared their silent agony until a lady’s maid appeared to ask if they required her aid in dressing for dinner.

Dinner wasn’t exactly a formal affair at the Murray household, save major holidays or Sir Malcolm’s homecomings, but anyone joining their table was expected to dress. Vanessa retreated to the spare room to change into the gown, pinching color into her cheeks and winding her hair into a sad facsimile of a chignon. She pulled on the shoes she’d meant to wear to Mina’s wedding ball, and paused for perhaps half a minute to study herself in the looking glass. As much as she’d needed—and enjoyed—the rest, it was a relief to wear a real woman’s clothing again, even if she was still rather pale. Judging herself satisfactory, she descended to the ground floor and made for the dining room.

Peter was the only one in the room, aimlessly circling the table set for five and swirling the semi-dry port that his father favored in his glass. He froze when she entered, then seemed to remember his manners and immediately rounded the table, holding out the seat that had historically been hers.

“Would you like to sit down? Can I get you a glass of wine?”

“I’ll sit, thank you. Perhaps later, for the wine.” Vanessa forced herself to look him in the eye and offer a small smile.

To her gratification, Peter didn’t look away. He even managed a polite smile of his own. “You look well, Van,” he said. “Better even than this afternoon.”

“It’s the candlelight,” she assured him. “It makes even monsters more becoming.”

“Nonsense. I’m glad to see you up and out of that room. I hope it means you’ll soon heal and be yourself again.” Peter offered her a hand to help her into the seat. Once she had sat, he gently eased the chair toward the table. “And that dress suits you.”

Unbelievably, Vanessa felt her cheeks warm. “Perhaps I will take a glass of wine,” she said faintly.

Peter poured her half as much as he had in his own glass, then took his place across the table from her. No sooner had he sat down than Mina entered, wearing an evening gown and with her face freshly powdered. Peter popped up again immediately, as if mimicking a jack-in-the-box, and Mina laughed. It was the most precious sound Vanessa had ever heard.

“I’m only your sister,” Mina teased him.

Peter walked to the seat beside Vanessa, pulled it away from the table, and swept a gallant arm over it. “My dear lady sister, if you please.”

Vanessa pursed her lips to keep from laughing aloud. Mina ran her fingers over her shoulder as she passed, and Vanessa caught her hand for the briefest of moments before she sat down.

Peter took his seat once more and companionable quiet had hardly fallen over the room before Mina said, “Van and I would like to speak to you after dinner. Once Mother and Father are asleep, preferably.”

Vanessa looked sharply at Mina, while Peter, startled, sat up straighter and raised an inquiring eyebrow at Vanessa. “About?” he prompted, his voice laced with barely restrained anxiety.

“It’s personal,” Mina insisted. “We’ll speak to you later.”

“We will?” Vanessa said. Her tone was harder than she’d meant it to be.

Mina lowered her voice and said, “You have to tell him. We can work it out together—there’s never been a problem the three of us can’t fix.”

“If this is about what happened, Van, I’d prefer it if we kept that between—”

“It’s not,” Vanessa interrupted him in a rush, understanding at last why the color had drained from his face. He thought she had told Mina about her advance against him in the hedge maze and his less-than-dignified retreat. She looked him in the eye and repeated, “It’s not,” with a small shake of the head.

Mina narrowed her eyes at her brother. “What happened?” When Peter said nothing, she looked to her friend. “Van?”

“Later,” Vanessa hissed, just as Sir Malcolm and Gladys entered the dining room. There was much made of Vanessa’s appearance at the table, though no one spoke about the events that had transpired mere days before. The family settled down to their meal, and though the conversation ebbed and flowed, Vanessa felt more at home at the Murrays’ table that evening than she had in many months.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mina and Vanessa decide to tell Peter what *really* happened the night Captain Branson died.

5.

Directly following dinner, Sir Malcolm adjourned to his study and Gladys invited the children for a game of cards in the parlor. Vanessa agreed to a few hands of gin, and Mina accompanied them to the next room. Peter disappeared for a short while, most likely to beg his father to share a cigar, a glass of brandy, and more of his adventurer’s stories, but presently, he joined them, as well. 

Mina joined the game after the first two hands, and when the competition grew too great, Vanessa excused herself to let mother and daughter fight to the bitter end. Vanessa smiled at Peter on her way out, a small invitation. He hesitated for five full minutes, then finally followed her.

It was too early to go to bed, and besides, Vanessa had spent the better part of the last three days asleep. She made for the back of the house, intending to stand in the grass outside and watch the stars for awhile, but Peter tapped her shoulder before she could get outside and beckoned her back into the dining room. The Murrays kept decanters of assorted liquors on the sideboard, for ease of access when they entertained, and he selected Gladys’ favorite schnapps for the occasion. Vanessa feigned a scandalized huff, then followed Peter outside.

They sat on an iron bench far enough from the house to have some privacy, yet near enough to still catch some of the light from the illuminated ground floor. Peter offered Vanessa the decanter and, though it was an awkward arrangement, she took a short sip from the wide mouth and then handed it back.

“You haven’t told Mina what happened in the maze?” Peter said, just after choking on too large a swig of schnapps.

“It was hardly the time,” Vanessa demurred. “First the wedding, then…everything else.” She sat back against the bench and sought the North Star in the sky. “We’ll keep it between us, Peter. It’s a private shame that I don’t wish to relive by explaining to others.”

“Shame.” Peter put his hand over his eyes. “I’m sorry, Van. You deserve better.”

She snatched the schnapps from his hand and took a longer swallow. “I don’t wish to discuss it.”

Blessedly, Peter held his tongue on further conversation. They sat in the night, sharing the schnapps in silence, drinking enough so as to be warmed by the liquor but not so much as to be very drunk. Eventually, one light on the ground floor—the parlor—winked out, and then another. Lights at the front of the house, the suite of rooms over the front door, blazed into life. One or other of the Murrays had gone to their bedroom, as the house settled down for the evening.

A few minutes later, footsteps approached across the lawn. Vanessa turned and spotted Mina, who stepped gingerly over the grass with her skirts raised to the ankle. “Mother’s retired for the evening and I believe Father may have fallen asleep at his desk again,” she reported, gesturing for Vanessa to make room on the bench. 

Vanessa obliged by pressing closer to Peter, her heart pounding with embarrassment as she whispered an apology that he politely ignored. Mina perched on Vanessa’s other side, then said, “We’re not quite small enough to fit here all together anymore, are we?”

“Not since Van and I were twelve,” Peter replied, “when we all squeezed into it and broke the old bench.” He took another sip of schnapps and then held the decanter out to Mina, who refused. “What do you two have to tell me that had to wait until the middle of the night?”

Vanessa couldn’t resist a jibe. “I thought you rather enjoyed this type of cloak and dagger intrigue.”

“Perhaps in books, but it’s rather tedious in life.”

Mina looked to Vanessa, who frowned in reply. Mina nodded, then leaned around Vanessa to speak to her brother. “It has to do with—with Charles. I saw something that night, before I fired Father’s pistol. Something in his eyes.”

Peter looked at both of them, perplexed. Mina put her hand on Vanessa’s elbow and gave it a gentle, urging squeeze. Vanessa took a deep breath, and then explained quickly what she had seen and heard since she was a child. It was all rooted in her faith, in her God, in her prayers and hopes and beliefs, and she had concluded long ago that the voice that spoke to her was not her God, but His Adversary—a dark spirit or a demon, perhaps Lucifer, himself.

Once she had finished the story, bringing them right up to Captain Branson’s demise, Vanessa let the final words hang in the air and waited anxiously for Peter to speak. He had watched her tell the story, his eyes never leaving her face as she spoke, but now he looked away and into the dark, seeming to study the great shadowy lump in the scenery that was the hedge maze.

At last, Peter said, “I know I’m no great hunter, and I’m not sure how we might hunt these creatures of which you speak even if I was. But Mina was right earlier, in the dining room—we’ve never faced an obstacle we couldn’t overcome.” He turned back and smiled at them both, and took Vanessa’s hand gently in his. “Together.”

None of them had any further ideas that might be of use at the moment, so Vanessa and Peter toasted each other’s good health and then the trio returned to the house. The servants had long since turned down the lights in the open rooms and halls, though a lamp still burned brightly in Malcolm’s study. 

Peter saw Vanessa and Mina to the stairs and wished them a good night, and then went to the dining room to return the schnapps. From there, Mina led Vanessa upstairs. When they paused to part ways at the door to the spare bedroom, Mina’s face was serious.

“I’m glad Peter knows now,” she said. “It’s silly, perhaps, to want to turn to one’s older brother for help even as an adult, but I’d be lost without him.”

“We both would be,” Vanessa agreed amicably. She heaved a weary sigh. “I didn’t realize what a relief it would be to share my demons.”

“Only the figurative ones, I hope.”

Vanessa was surprised to see Mina’s smirk in the half-light, but she laughed quietly in reply and then patted her friend’s arm. “Sleep well, Mina.”

“Good night, Van.” Mina turned to go, but paused at her own bedroom door and softly called Vanessa’s name to catch her attention again. 

“What happened?” Mina asked. “Between you and Peter, I mean? He’s been so fretful about you recently. Even…before.”

This gave Vanessa pause. She wanted desperately to ask if Mina meant ‘fretful’ in a positive way—wondering where Vanessa was, what she thought of him, why she’d chosen to wear one dress to meet him over another—and not just in Peter’s familiar, brotherly manner. But she bit her tongue on the questions and instead replied, “Nothing at all. He worries. You know.”

Mina laughed fondly. “That he does. Perhaps it would do for us to be more like him.” She wished Vanessa a good night once more, and then let herself into her room. 

Vanessa entered the spare room and stood for a long time in the darkness, leaning against the door and accompanied only by the distant tick of the grandfather clock in the hall outside. Finally, she heard footsteps ascend the stairs and head away from the room Sir Malcolm and Gladys Murray shared. It had to be Peter, then. 

She almost opened the door. Perhaps it was just the schnapps making her bold, encouraging her to try again to win his affections. Regardless, she tamped down the urge and, instead, changed quickly back into her bedclothes, laid Mina’s borrowed dress over the chair in the corner, climbed into bed, and promptly fell asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa and Peter have a Very Serious Discussion.

6.

The next two days passed quickly. Vanessa slept late the following morning, and then her mother appeared just before lunch with a valise of clothing and other essentials and stayed to lunch with her daughter and the Murray women in the garden. Afterward, Vanessa went for a walk on the beach with Mina that carried them to dinnertime. 

She spent her last full day in the Murray home deep in discussion with Mina and Peter about the Bible and how best to attempt to banish the demons she felt in her soul. Their discussions didn’t seem to be amounting to much, but Sir Malcolm caught parts of their discussion. Half in jest, he accused Vanessa of attempting to convert his children. 

“Save that for after marriage,” he advised with a sly look between Vanessa and his son. Peter glanced away and Vanessa looked to Mina, who swatted at her father to shoo him from the room.

The new weekend began brilliantly, a sunny day with blue-gray skies punctuated only here and there by fat white clouds. Without the awful events of weekend last, Vanessa couldn’t help but think, as she neatly folded the last of her undergarments for the short trip home, Mina would have been Mrs. Wilhelmina Branson for nearly a week now. 

As it was, the bruises around Vanessa’s neck had only just begun to fade, leaving splotchy yellow edges as the angry purple began to recede. They were no closer to a better explanation of what had really happened that night, or how best to go about ensuring such things never happened again, but Vanessa felt better about her friendships with both of the Murray siblings. It was a small point in the gloom, but a bright one.

There came a knock on the bedroom door, and Vanessa tucked her things into her valise and then called for the visitor to enter. Peter opened the door, smiling, and Vanessa turned to him, expectant. “Has my mother come to fetch me?”

“Not just yet,” Peter said, and eased the door shut after him. “I was hoping I might have a word?” 

“Of course.” Vanessa set her valise on the floor and sat on the bed, gesturing for Peter to join her.

He sat heavily beside her, inhaled deeply, and then said, “Van, I realize this may not be the best time to discuss this. But I’ve been thinking again about the other afternoon—in the hedge maze—"

Vanessa summoned her brightest smile and forced herself to look him in the eye. "Please, let's not speak of it. I apologize for being so forward. I misunderstood the situation entirely, and I never should have allowed myself to take such liberties on so flimsy a rationale."

Peter dropped his eyes. "Oh. Well, then. That makes this rather awkward." Slow, terrified, he reached out a hand toward her lap, extracted one of her hands, and laced his shaking fingers through hers. Vanessa studied their fingers, twined together on the dark fabric of her gown. She’d held Peter’s hand before, but only when they were young and he was leading her through the dunes, or, more recently, if the situation called for a proffered hand to help her into a carriage. This felt different— _intimate_. It felt like something changing. 

"I actually wanted to apologize for my own behavior,” Peter continued. “There are certain things about me that you may not understand, Van—things I hardly understand myself. You surprised me that afternoon, and I didn’t know what it might mean, or what you might want from me, or what I should want from you. To speak plainly, it—it terrified me.”

He glanced at her, anxiety marring the smile on his lips. But he had the most becoming color in his cheeks, and Vanessa gently squeezed his fingers, urging him on. 

"But I’ve thought it over, and I think perhaps it’s an opportunity worth exploring," Peter continued in a rush. 

Vanessa's eyes went wide with shock. "Peter—?" 

Suddenly, he grinned at her, bright and true. It nearly stopped her heart. To have a young man—any young man, yes, but _this_ young man—look at her with this kind of mischievous eagerness and adoration was more than she could have ever thought possible for herself. 

A week ago, he’d shoved her away, stumbled through an excuse, and had practically set out for the Murray home at a sprint. Now, Vanessa didn’t entirely understand what he was trying to say, exactly, but she knew that she was afraid of him, too, and of herself, and of what this might mean. She didn’t delude herself into thinking whatever had stopped him before had vanished in the night, like the lifting of a spell. But this was a promise to make a promise, and it was more than she’d ever had before.

"As I said, awkward timing just now," Peter said lightly. "But in perhaps a month's time, if I were to appear on your doorstep and ask you to accompany me, say, to supper in the city...?"

Vanessa paused, contemplating how to modulate her response. He wasn't proposing marriage, after all. There was no need for breathless declarations of love, or desperate pleas for his undying devotion. For now, they were just two old friends who shared Vanessa's darkest secret. She suspected Peter's heart of harboring one or two secrets of its own; he’d admitted as much just a moment ago, if in a rather roundabout way. These, too, would come to light, in time. They needn't discuss them now.

Deciding to keep the mood jovial (or as jovial as possible, considering the circumstances), she sat up a bit taller and leaned closer. They were now two conspirators, combing through the finer details of a most delicious plot. 

She gave him a wicked smile. "If that were to happen, Peter, I think everyone in the neighborhood would scold you for keeping me waiting for so long." She paused, then asked, “But why? What changed your mind?”

Peter shifted uncomfortably and said, “Mainly? The incident of weekend last. I tried to imagine my life without you, and…I couldn’t see it. We came very close to losing you, Van, and it brought certain details into focus.” Peter's pale blush turned scarlet, but he patted their twined fingers with his free hand and said quite maturely, "I'm a fool. But I promise not to be anymore."

"Be as foolish as you want. It's one of your more charming attributes."

"Oh, is that so?" he laughed, and pressed the back of one hand against her forehead. "I think last week’s strain has given you a fever. You're not speaking sense."

"You're a beast," Vanessa pronounced primly, pushing his hand away. "You’ve thoroughly exhausted me. Please go so that I may swoon in private.”

Without even a beat of hesitancy, Peter picked up her hand and bent his head to press his lips to her knuckles. When he straightened up and met her gaze, Vanessa feared she'd turned quite as red as he had been only moments before.

"I'll come back when your mother arrives," he said softly, then stood to collect her valise, to bring downstairs ahead of her exit.

Vanessa nodded, mute, as Peter crossed to the door. He paused with his right hand on the doorknob, and then looked back at her over his shoulder, as if she'd called him back.

Feeling as though she needed to fill the pregnant silence, Vanessa could only come up with, "Thank you, Peter."

"Of course. Be well, Van."

When her mother arrived an hour later, Peter escorted Vanessa downstairs, but neither of them breathed a word of the pre-courtship into which they had apparently entered. Vanessa hugged Mina hard and thanked the Murrays for their kindness and hospitality, and then she and her mother made the walk through the gate that separated their properties. 

Once inside her own home, and then her own bedroom, the feeling of being a stranger in a strange land settled fully onto Vanessa’s shoulders. After just a week away, her house felt over-large and quiet, compared to the comforting buzz of activity at the Murrays’. She comforted herself with the thought that soon enough, she might not live here anymore—she might not even be an Ives in name for very much longer. A shiver of a thrill ran through her spine.

 _Mrs. Vanessa Murray._ It was early yet to be ordering monogrammed stationary, but it was lovely, at long last, to have something wonderful to look forward to.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles Branson is laid to rest and Vanessa does her best to make both Murray siblings happy.

7.

Not long after Vanessa’s departure, the Murrays received word that the following Tuesday, just outside London, the Bransons would bury their son Charles in the family crypt. It wasn’t a formal invitation, just an interesting line of gossip passed along through the neighborhood grapevine. Mina and her family hadn’t explicitly been banned from the funeral, but it was quietly agreed that the appearance of the woman who had shot and killed the deceased at his own funeral would illustrate nothing but poor taste.

Instead, on the morning of the funeral, Vanessa went to the Murrays’ and insisted on Mina’s accompanying her into town for an early tea. They walked the three miles under cloudy skies that threatened a late spring storm, perused the few local shops after their tea, and then walked home to Mina’s house in the rain. It was only on the walk back that Mina mentioned the somber reason for their outing. 

“I loved Charles,” she said, when they were about a mile away from town. “I loved him so much it hurt, and I loved thinking about the life we could have together. The children we’d raise, the places we’d see. And I still love him. Despite everything, I still love him.”

Carefully, Vanessa slowed her stride so it matched Mina’s, then put an arm over her friend’s shoulders. “You did nothing wrong,” she said gently. “It’s unfortunate that a good man like Charles had to be caught in this web. But you didn’t end his life; the demon did. You were defending yourself—you saved my life.”

Mina said nothing for perhaps another half-mile. When she did finally speak again, it was only a vague comment about the weather. But though she spent the rest of the day in a quiet, contemplative mood, she didn’t appear to be nearly as sad as she’d been that morning.

The entire excursion ate up most of the day. When Mina excused herself to wring the rainwater from her dress, and managed a small schoolgirl’s smile at her comment, Gladys quietly pulled Vanessa aside for a brief, grateful embrace.

Vanessa was invited to stay for dinner, but she had promised to dine with her parents that evening, and so she lingered only an hour or two more before the giant parlor fire with Mina. They curled up together on the hearth rug, reading aloud penny dreadfuls that assorted family members and servants had collected from the newspapers over the last few months. They preferred to read them this way, all at once, to alleviate the suspense. Vanessa and Mina shared a certain level of impatience that made such waiting for a conclusion almost a painful physical affliction.

When Vanessa felt that her hair and clothing were very nearly dry, she looked out the parlor window to check the weather and then announced that she would take her leave. She unraveled herself from the blanket she’d stolen off the chaise lounge and used Mina’s shoulder to leverage herself off the floor, then let her hand linger there.

“Allow yourself to mourn, my love,” she said. “And then allow yourself to heal.”

Mina met her eye and gave her a sad smile. “Where do you come up with these platitudes? You always manage to sound like a wizened old crone exactly when I need to hear it.”

Vanessa beamed. “Too much poetry. Enjoy your ghost stories.”

In the front hall, she collected her coat from Mr. Andrews, who had kindly brought her outerwear into the kitchen to allow it to dry in the heat from the oven and stove. She had just shrugged on the coat and was headed for the door when Peter hurried suddenly into the hall. He had one arm safely ensconced in his overcoat, the other caught in the opposite sleeve, and he nodded a dismissal to the waiting Mr. Andrews.

“Van,” Peter said, breathless but happy, “if you’ll permit me?” He sorted out his coat, took his hat from the rack near the door, and opened the front door for her, offering her an arm.

Vanessa took his arm with a nod of thanks, and they walked out into a mist that seemed not so much to fall as to hover in mid-air. Vanessa paused to pull up the hood of her coat, then rearranged herself on Peter’s arm and continued on.

She asked, “Are you off somewhere? You were in quite a hurry.”

“I was coming out of Father’s study a few minutes ago and I heard your voice down the hall,” Peter admitted. “By the time I got to the parlor, Mina said you were on your way out.” He paused. “I think she suspects something.”

Vanessa looked at him, all wide-eyed innocence. “Is there anything to suspect, Mr. Murray?” 

He patted her hand with his and then let it rest there. “I’m glad our romantic future amuses you so, Miss Ives.”

“I’m not the one barreling through the halls of the Murray manor to walk a young lady the twenty meters to her door.”

“Oh, much farther—at _least_ twenty-five. It wouldn’t be right for you to make the trip alone.”

They laughed, and settled into an easy conversation about a piece of Russian literature Vanessa had recently devoured. Peter wasn’t nearly as prolific a reader as she was, as he was often lost in his maps and charts, but he could be an enthusiastic conversationalist about almost any topic. 

As they stepped through the gate and onto Ives land, Vanessa made note of the way they had each slowed their gaits, stretching a five-minute walk as long as was socially acceptable for two young people who weren’t yet courting.

They paused and stood facing each other within the tree line at the edge of the property, just out of sight of the house. Peter cleared his throat; Vanessa smirked.

He said, “I know we agreed to wait a few more weeks before making our intentions clear, but I’d like to see more of you before then. If that’s pleasing to you, as well.”

“Peter, we see each other nearly every day,” Vanessa replied with a laugh.

“Yes—for dinner with our parents or tea with Mina. Or as you two walk off on some adventure while I’m scouring Father’s paperwork for some minute detail he’s forgotten.”

“As is proper,” Vanessa said, teasing. She stepped a little closer. “Though if no one yet suspects, and we haven’t yet told a soul of our intentions, we might yet be able to find a few stolen moments alone.”

Peter put his hand over his heart as if about to swoon. “How romantic.”

She shoved him, if lightly. “Hush, you. I’ll be out most of tomorrow and I have an appointment on Thursday morning, but I’ll most likely be at your house that afternoon. Would you like to meet me, or not?”

“Most definitely,” Peter said with a grin. “And please, no talk of Dostoyevsky or devils. Just…us.”

Vanessa thought back to her chess game with Peter the week before, and the places her thoughts had traveled while studying him. When she thought of Peter, there was still no surge of attraction. But there was so much love, it nearly broke her heart. Some young people wanted the courting and the engagement and the wedding over and done with so they might finally have a moment alone to do what married couples were allowed to do. Vanessa was excited at the simple prospect of sharing her home with a partner who so perfectly understood her temperament—and matched it. 

She closed the gap between them and pressed a kiss onto his cheek. “Write me a poem in the meantime, why don’t you?”

“In two days’ time? Women do not ask so much even of Byron.”

“I’m not asking for Byronic verse, am I?”

Peter heaved a sigh, then caught Vanessa’s hand and kissed it. “Go on, then. I’ve work to do—apparently.”

Vanessa walked a few paces away, then turned back to find Peter still standing there, a lopsided smile on his face. “I like this gallant new side of you,” she called back to him. “I’m not sure why you’ve hidden it for so long.”

“You wound me, Miss Ives,” he replied, but raised a hand in farewell and then turned to walk back toward his own home. 

The next day, a Murray maid covertly delivered a crudely constructed sonnet on a piece of Sir Malcolm’s stationary. Peter had rather innovatively slant-rhymed “Vanessa” with “miasma,” and signed it “Lord Murray.” Vanessa used the folded page as a bookmark in her latest literary conquest and couldn’t help but smile to herself every time she saw it awaiting her.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa and Peter put their plan into action.

8.

For exactly three and a half weeks, no one looking too closely would have noticed anything different in either the Ives or the Murray households. Vanessa continued to appear at the Murrays, and she occasionally reciprocated by inviting both Mina and Peter to her own drawing room for tea, cards, or long, quiet stretches of reading. One or the other family would host a dinner party every week or so, and the invitations were never declined.

In this time, another neighbor who lived a bit farther from town decided to host a proper ball, inviting nearly the entirety of the county. When the night at last arrived, Vanessa and Peter danced together just once. Only a few of the more observant grandmothers noticed when both parties vanished for half an hour, and no one who saw them laughing on the expansive back porch thought much of it. It was well-known that the Ives girl was a longtime friend of the Murray children, and if the boy hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to marry her, most suspected he never would. 

Vanessa had even kept their plan from Mina, not that Mina hadn’t make a valiant effort to ferret out her secret. She noticed Vanessa’s increasingly clandestine comings and goings—and the funny habit they had of lining up with Peter’s disappearances—almost immediately, but no measure of poking, prodding, cajoling, or begging brought forth a confession of any worth. Vanessa refused to lie to her best friend, so she simply refused to say a word on the topic.

It was all very exciting and felt very wicked, though she and Peter mostly ran off to the hedge maze to lie in the grass and talk about his job prospects and the places she hoped to see in her lifetime. They planned their first official outing as a courting couple—he would stop by the week before their deadline to talk to her father, she would feign surprise, and then they would set a date and take the train to London, probably with one of their maids as a chaperone, for an early dinner and a bit of sightseeing. Peter had been to the city a few times, always on business with his father, and he found it shameful that Vanessa hadn’t yet been.

They kissed again, exactly three more times. These were far more favorable endeavors to Vanessa’s aborted attempt of all those weeks ago, even if Vanessa still found Peter a bit stiff when it came to such things. About a week into their private pre-courtship, Vanessa had begun laying her head on Peter’s shoulder when they sat side-by-side, or taking his hand the moment they were out of the sight of prying eyes. Slowly, he began to reciprocate, though in subtler, if more public, ways—he walked her home on a dozen more occasions, always holding her close to his side, and he’d once dared to run his thumb over her bare shoulder at a family dinner when Malcolm had the rest of the room enthralled with yet another endless tale of the Congo. These moments felt properly stolen and romantic; Vanessa almost proposed that they just elope, in order to better cling to the aura.

But then the day arrived when Peter would formally announce to Gordon Ives his intentions to court Vanessa. Ominous clouds hung in the air, so dark as to be nearly black, and Vanessa tried not to see a bad prophecy in them. Peter had promised to arrive just after breakfast, and Vanessa made sure she was sequestered in her room—supposedly working on some Latin translation that had caught her fancy—so that she might be near enough the action to hear the response promptly, but far enough away so as to properly play her part.

After retiring to her room, she stared at an open Latin tome and notebook for twenty minutes before she heard the front door open, and then proceeded to translate just one line in the half-hour Peter made his case in the drawing room. Vanessa had purposefully left her door ajar, but could only hear the rise and fall of Peter’s voice, punctuated by her father’s characteristically soft, short responses. Occasionally, there was laughter, which Vanessa found puzzling.

Eventually, the front door opened and closed again, and Vanessa picked up her pen and hurried through a few more lines to make it look like she’d been doing more than gnawing anxiously on her lip for the last hour. As she changed Latin to English and vice versa to fill the page, her mind wandered back to Peter, who was surely now walking into his father’s study to inform Sir Malcolm of what he’d done. Soon, the entire Murray family would know his intentions.

And yet it took her father another forty minutes to first track down her mother, and then to explain the situation so that they might discuss it. It felt like an eternity had passed before Gordon climbed the stairs and rapped on the doorframe.

Vanessa paused, turned a page in her Latin book, and then said calmly, “Come in.” She looked up with a serene smile at her father’s entrance and asked nonchalantly, “Did I hear the door earlier?”

Her father dragged the seat that paired with her vanity over and sat beside her writing desk. “It was Peter Murray,” he told her, “and I’ve just had a most interesting conversation with that young man.”

“Life advice, no doubt,” Vanessa said with a small laugh. “I’ve always thought he needs someone more rational than Sir Malcolm to set him on a proper course.”

“Life advice—yes, of a sort.” Gordon Ives was not a man who often looked comfortable in his environment, but he looked even worse now. A sheen of sweat covered his forehead and he readjusted his lapels and jacket sleeves five times before getting to the point.

“Peter has informed me that he’s rather taken with you, Vanessa. I can’t entirely say I’m surprised, as you’ve been such friends for so long. In all honesty, your mother and I have been preparing for just such a conversation for many years now, though we had begun to assume Peter’s interests lay elsewhere, when you both came of age and no proclamation was forthcoming. But it seems he was just a bit slow in reaching the point.

“Anyhow, he seems now to be under the impression that you return his affections, at least in some small way. To that end, he’s asked if he might begin courting you—properly—to ascertain the extent of both your feelings on the subject. He appears to have every intention to marry you, should you both find the match satisfactory.”

Vanessa hadn’t thought hearing the words from her father would have such an effect on her, not after the weeks of planning that had brought them to this point. And this was Peter they were discussing, for God’s sake. He was hardly the mustachioed lothario of an adolescent Vanessa’s dreams. Together, they had broken down their courtship, engagement, and eventual marriage into a science, a carefully calibrated plan to be followed to the letter to ensure success. It was no secret that neither of them had any better prospects, and it would be better to walk into this arranged partnership than to walk the earth alone.

But there was something about the way her father was looking at her as he said these words, a beautiful combination of hope and pride and absolute terror, that made her want to laugh and cry all at once. She set her pen down, all pretense of translation forgotten, and said faintly, “Peter Murray wants to court me?” She’d been practicing her response in the mirror for two weeks, but now the moment had come and she found that no acting was required.

“He’s asked if you might like to accompany him into London next week,” her father said. “I think that may be a bit rash for a preliminary outing, but he did say his housekeeper was willing to spend her afternoon off as your chaperone. And I suppose we must take into account the long friendship our families have shared.” 

Gordon shifted the bench closer and took each of Vanessa’s hands in his own. “Vanessa, I’ve always said that this was as much your decision as it would be mine or your mother’s. I’m not sure how much of this Peter may have already expressed to you, either overtly or otherwise, and I’m not sure I will ever be able to read your heart to know its secrets. 

“But, as your father, I will tell you that you have my absolute blessing to proceed with this match, and I encourage you to carefully consider before declining, should that be your heart’s desire.” He took her chin in his hand and, for the first time in many years, a genuine smile lit her father’s normally dour face. “And, as your father, I feel duty-bound to inform you that I believe that young man truly loves you. That is the grandest thing one can hope for in this life, darling. I shouldn’t waste a chance like this, were I in your place.”

“Peter loves me,” Vanessa whispered, the only words that had really sunk in.

Her father’s smile widened. “Shall I take that as acceptance?”

Finally, Vanessa allowed herself a smile. She took her father’s hand and said, “Yes. Yes, please, tell him yes.”

Her father made plans to walk over to the Murrays’ after their midday meal, to allow his wife and daughter time to talk over the new turn of events privately. But just as the lunch dishes were being cleared, their butler appeared in the dining room door and announced, “Sir Malcolm Murray and Mr. Peter Murray to see you, sir.”

Vanessa’s breath caught in her throat, and she looked to her father. Gordon rose and beckoned for Vanessa to join him. “We’ll see them in the drawing room, thank you. Claire, please have a tea tray prepared.”

Vanessa felt her mother’s hand in hers and found the strength in Claire’s silent reassurance to rise from the table and follow her father down the hall. She walked at his side, back straight, head up, and tried not to think about the sorry state of her hair—she and Peter hadn’t planned this part, and she would have asked her mother for help should she have expected his visit.

The Murrays stood in the drawing room, Peter pacing before the front windows, Sir Malcolm standing as still as a tree, examining an oil painting on the wall of a distant Ives relation. Normally, Vanessa would have thrown herself forward to hug Malcolm hello and then most likely greeted Peter by stealing his hat and making him fight her for it. But the dynamic between them had shifted—she felt it the moment she and her father entered the room, when Sir Malcolm turned and shook her father’s hand, and then politely took Vanessa’s. It wasn’t a bad feeling in the air, and it was only a little sad—an era ending, to make way for a new one.

Malcolm, Vanessa noted, was smiling with the kind of restrained glee she only saw on his face when he was freshly returned from one of his expeditions. That was a comfort. He watched with pride as Peter stepped forward to greet Gordon, Peter’ knuckles white with the grip of his hand on the older man’s. Peter offered a conspiratorial wink for Vanessa when they shook, and she had to work to dampen her response to a demure smile.

“Please, sit,” Gordon offered, and they did so. Peter and Malcolm shared the sofa, while Vanessa and Gordon took seats in the armchairs across the coffee table. A maid arrived a moment later with a tea tray, and Vanessa offered to pour.

Once the room had settled again, Sir Malcolm set his teacup down, cleared his throat, and said, “I understand my son has made his intentions known at last.”

“Yes, we had a lively conversation this morning,” Gordon said, smiling at Peter, who offered one in return. “And I’m glad he’s spoken to you about it. Because I’ve discussed the matter with my wife and daughter—”

“And his daughter says she’d love to,” Vanessa broke in. She took a tiny sip of tea, and added, “Would love to enter into a formal courtship with your son, that is.”

Malcolm laughed. “Ask and ye shall receive,” he said to Peter. To Gordon, he said, “It seems we’re to be more than neighbors from now on, Mr. Ives.”

Vanessa was sure she wasn’t imagining her father’s cool tone when he replied, “It brings me nothing but joy, Sir Malcolm.” Whatever happiness Gordon might feel for his daughter in this moment, his relationship with the Murray patriarch was never going to be a warm one.

The discussion turned to the matter of the new couple’s first outing, and when it seemed that the London debate might rage on for another hour, at least, Peter politely interrupted the conversation to ask if he might take Vanessa for a walk. A chaperone couldn’t be arranged, so they simply strolled back and forth before the house, in full view of the drawing room windows where their fathers decided their shared future. 

Together, they laughed uproariously about their great success.

“Was Mina very upset with us when you told her?” Vanessa asked on their fifteenth or sixteenth pass before the house—she’d lost count some time ago.

“I think moreso that we had held our tongues so firmly on the matter,” Peter replied, grinning. “You know how she hates to be left out of a secret. I’m sure she’ll forgive us sometime after the birth of our first child.”

They both glanced away at the mention of children, mostly thinking of how such blessed events came to be. But a moment later, Vanessa forced polite laughter and shook her head to clear the air. “She’ll be right as rain by the wedding day,” she assured him. “She’ll be my maid of honor and I’ll put her in charge of all the preparations, and she won’t have time to be angry.”

They amused themselves for three-quarters of an hour more, Vanessa occasionally walking backward to face him as they talked and strolled, Peter—finally—taking her hand for their last dozen laps. 

Eventually, Sir Malcolm appeared on the lawn. His eyes fell on their linked hands, though he made no comment on it. Instead, he leaned in to kiss Vanessa’s cheek, feather light, and informed the pair that they would be traveling to London Wednesday next by the eleven o’clock train, and they were expected home no later than four that afternoon.

“It was the best I could argue your father into,” Sir Malcolm said, mischievous. “Give it time, and I promise not to fail you again.” He leaned away and tipped his hat. “Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, Sir Malcolm,” Vanessa replied, grinning, and then leaned into Peter quickly and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. “Good afternoon, Peter.”

Peter squeezed her fingers and said nothing, though his smile spoke volumes. Vanessa lingered on the lawn, watching them go, and it only struck her on the walk back to the house that the rest of her life had largely been planned in three-quarters of an hour.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there's no place like London.
> 
> (Any errors in geography are my own!)

9\. 

The Murrays’ housekeeper, Mrs. Westenra, had Wednesdays off. Traditionally, she spent those days visiting her daughter and assorted other relations in the area. But when the news of Peter’s budding courtship of Vanessa traveled below-stairs, she immediately agreed to the change in her plans when asked to accompany them to London, instead.

Peter arrived at Vanessa’s door at ten o’clock and shared a brief cup of tea with the family, before offering Vanessa his arm and walking her outside to the gravel path where the Murray’s carriage awaited them. Mrs. Westenra sat across from them in the cab, beaming. She commented occasionally on the landscape, or pointed out how lovely Vanessa’s dress was, how beautiful her hair, blatantly encouraging Peter to follow her lead. It would soon become clear that Mrs. Westenra was so very much in love with the idea of young love that she was willing to be a rather lax chaperone.

Peter had said Vanessa looked beautiful as he escorted her out of her house, and that had been enough for her. Instead, she and Peter laughed about local gossip for most of the ride to the station, and, once safely ensconced on the train, discussed their plans for the afternoon. Peter had purchased their tickets in advance—according to a discreet Mrs. Westenra, he’d run out the very moment he and his father returned from their discussion with Mr. Ives—and they rode in ease all the way to King’s Cross.

As it was nearly midday, they went directly to lunch at a restaurant Sir Malcolm had recommended, a fashionable café in Soho. Mrs. Westenra explained the situation to an obliging maître d’, who arranged for the couple to be seated at one table and their chaperone at one adjacent. Both Peter and Vanessa argued that she shouldn’t have to eat alone, but the housekeeper insisted, and then pulled a novel from her handbag.

“I have all the company I need, ducks,” she said with a wink. “Go on, then. But nothing untoward—I’ll still be right here.”

After their meal, they planned to walk as much of the city as time would allow, beginning at Buckingham Palace. Vanessa found herself overwhelmed by London, but in a most pleasing way—intoxicated, perhaps, was the better word. She wanted to see everything, to taste the gritty air and dip her toe in the Thames, no matter how inadvisable a course of action that might be. She convinced Peter to wave up at one of the palace windows, insisting she’d seen the Queen peeking out from behind a curtain, and then they moved off. 

They circled Trafalgar and the National Portrait Gallery; they passed the British Museum and Peter promised to take her on their next trip into the city, to see the work of real taxidermists, masters of their craft who brought all manner of dangerous fauna to life. They didn’t have time for the zoo, though they did stand outside and listen to the screech and growl of foreign creatures for a time, describing for each other what the beasts that made each sound might look like. 

They lost Mrs. Westenra to a teashop not long after wandering away from Buckingham Palace, as she complained of her “old bones” and sore feet. She made them swear first, to behave like a lady and a gentleman of their upbringing should, and second, that they would return for her in time to make the train at quarter to three. They promised, and kept their word on both counts, too lost in London’s bounty of striking sites to think of behaving ill.

There was only a moment of wickedness this afternoon, on Vanessa’s part. She and Peter walked into a curio shop to peruse the wares, a somewhat gloomy room stacked with all manner of antiques and worn-out things. Aside from the proprietor, there were only two others in the store—an elderly woman who had become totally engrossed in her choice of doilies, and a young man flipping through a poorly maintained first edition of Shelley. His dark hair hung in his eyes, disheveled in a way that seemed to suggest he wanted it to look that way, and he wore a gleaming ring on nearly every finger.

Peter found a few scraps of exotic-looking furs and beckoned the proprietor over to inquire about their origins, and Vanessa turned to a bookshelf laden with trinkets and what appeared to be medical textbooks. 

Vanessa ran a finger through the dust on the edge of the shelf, reading the titles and authors’ names to herself silently, occasionally pausing over a particularly interesting curiosity. On her second pass of the shelf at her eye level, she let her fingers play lightly over a number of finely crafted wild creatures, including the porcelain form of a wolf. It seemed so strange to have such a predator preserved in so delicate a medium, especially surrounded by fine glass vases and all manner of clay cats and china dolls. 

Vanessa plucked the wolf from its place on the shelf, holding it up to her eyes to study the coloration of the porcelain pelt. Then, as if controlled by another hand, she clutched the tiny wolf in her fist and, without another thought, stuffed her hand into her coat pocket.

She felt eyes on her face and turned slowly, catching the eye of the bejeweled young man with the Shelley volume still in his grasp. It was clear he’d seen her tuck the wolf away, but there was only a thin smirk on his lips. He gave a subtle shake of the head, more of a taunt than an admonishment, then snapped the book shut smartly and replaced it on the shelf. He walked toward the front of the store, passing behind Vanessa as he went. 

“Good day, miss,” he breathed, and she turned her head to him in time to see him bow his head in farewell.

“Good day, Mr. Gray,” the proprietor called, a waiting Peter forgotten in the exit of the preferred customer.

The young man paused in the doorway just long enough to put a hand to his bare head, as if tipping a hat, and then let his eyes sweep over Vanessa once more before taking his leave.

A few minutes later, Vanessa had pulled a book of maps of the ancient world from another shelf and Peter appeared at her side, reading over her shoulder. A few minutes later, they left the shop to continue on their walk, and she forgot about the wolf in her pocket until she was safely returned to her own home hours later.

On the way home, the train car filled with their chatter, enough that an older man turned to them with a stern word. Mrs. Westenra rose immediately from a supposed slumber to warn the man off, and he shrunk away in the face of her fury. After that, Vanessa lowered her voice and Peter seemed more subdued, but they kept up their running tally of all they’d seen that day and all they still planned to do on their next adventure. 

They only fell into a companionable quiet once safely ensconced back in the Murray’s carriage. Mrs. Westenra arranged herself across from them and made much the same commentary on the passing trees and fields as she had on the way to the train that morning. 

They had been riding along for perhaps ten minutes when Vanessa made the decision to be bold. She held her chin in one hand, peering out the window at the falling dusk, and rested the other on her knee. Slowly, she let her hand slide over her thigh, onto the cab’s bench, and then up onto Peter’s knee, where she carefully curled her fingers over his waiting hand. 

She felt him stiffen in response. But then he turned his hand over and clasped hers. Vanessa felt nervous perspiration in his palm.

_Soon, child._

Vanessa hadn’t heard the voice echoing in her mind since Captain Branson’s demise, so it took a sleepy moment for her to place the sound. Once she had, it was insistent, reverberating, filling her head, tripping over itself—on and on it went, seemingly never ending. It whispered truths that she told herself were most certainly lies, and railed against her God. She squeezed Peter’s hand for strength, and the voice in her head laughed.

_Not that way. Await my coming._

The voice faded from her mind, replaced by Mrs. Westenra’s good-natured prattle about the state of a neighbor’s garden. Peter squeezed Vanessa’s hand, and she turned to see him gazing at her with obvious concern. She couldn’t bring herself to smile, so she only gave a small shake of the head, a promise to discuss it later. 

She would have to inform both Peter and Mina that the voice in her head had returned—and that it sounded much closer than it ever had before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the lengthy wait for an update! I have a number of chapters written up, but work got a bit hectic at the end of the summer and I haven't had the chance to re-read or edit anything (or to continue writing) until very recently.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this new chapter, though, and thank you for sticking with me!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a midnight discussion leaves everyone most unsatisfied.

10.

After dining with her parents, Vanessa retired to her bedroom and changed quickly into her nightgown and dressing gown. She blew out the candle at her bedside, then curled up on the duvet to wait for the house to settle for the evening. She was set to meet the Murrays in their hedge maze in an hour’s time, and she was hoping also for a moment alone with Peter once she had filled both sister and brother in on the day’s developments.

_He is damned, and you with him, child._

She hadn’t been expecting the voice, exactly, but its insistent return earlier that day had seemed to signal that it meant to stay in her mind. 

“No,” Vanessa whispered in reply to the darkness, shutting her eyes and pulling her knees to her chest. “Not now. Never again.”

_I will have you, Vanessa Ives._

She scrambled off the bed and fell to her knees before the crucifix, a symbol she had not looked to for guidance since God’s failure to respond months earlier. She had prayed then for selfish reasons, to rid her mind of the image of Peter’s death, of her own sorrow and fear; she now wanted only to save him, to save Mina, to save her parents and the Murrays and everyone she had ever known and loved.

But even as she unspooled all the Latin she knew, all the platitudes she could remember, and all the pleas that sprung to her mind, the voice was louder, and growing louder still. Her mind filled again with shadowy figures, grotesque and covered in blood, and blurred images, and the voice, repeating over and over again that her doom approached, and that she could not outrun it. 

The words made her deaf to all else, a proper raucous, and Vanessa feared she might be shouting her prayers at the unheeding crucifix on the wall. She had her eyes squeezed shut tight against the assault, like a child warding off the final vestiges of a nightmare, but she was sure she heard the bedroom furniture rattling—picture frames trembling against the wall, the bed rocking to and fro, her vanity sure to fall on its side and spill its contents across the floor. Surely such an unholy cacophony would bring her parents running; surely they would know what to do; surely this torment would end. 

All in a moment, the sound ceased, and she was left only with her whispered prayer. She hesitated for a beat, then finished her thought in a mangled mixture of Latin and English, and heaved out in a sigh, _“Amen.”_

Silence reigned. And then, the voice, low and seductive:

_Soon._

Vanessa rose unsteadily to her feet, her knees throbbing and the flesh of her hands bearing the marks of her own nails. She rubbed absently at her skin, trying to relieve both the dull pain and the marks she’d left, and then crept to her bedroom door, listening. The house appeared to be asleep—her torment had aroused no suspicion. Had she imagined it, after all? She sank to the floor, resting her head against the door, and waited, trembling, for the final half-hour to pass before her arranged meeting with the Murray siblings.

She left the house through the servant’s entrance in the kitchen, making sure to take a key and lock up after her exit. The night was dark and still, and she couldn’t bear it alone—she ran to the gate at the edge of her property and made a mad dash toward the maze on the Murray side of the divider. Once she had found her way to the center, Vanessa sat and gulped cool night air until her heart slowed and her chest stopped burning with the frenzied heaving of her lungs. Here, at least, she knew the shadows like old friends.

Peter and Mina appeared a moment later, Mina similarly dressed to Vanessa in her bedclothes, and Peter still properly attired in the day’s suit. Vanessa greeted Mina first, raising her hands so her friend could place her palms against hers, and then she turned to Peter and accepted a light peck on the cheek. 

They sat in the grass while Vanessa explained what she had heard in the carriage that afternoon, and what had transpired in her own room not ten minutes before. She refrained from mentioning the filched porcelain wolf that now resided in the drawer at her bedside, as to do so would undoubtedly prompt her to admit to any number of childhood instances of petty thievery that she did not yet wish to disclose. In the grand scheme of things, a hairbrush and a trinket from an antiques shop felt like nothing when compared to the broader implications of what the voice had said.

They debated the meaning of the line about damnation, and then briefly considered means of healing Vanessa’s ailments. Mina suggested an exorcism, which she claimed to have read about in a book, and Peter could only offer prayer as a possible remedy. He seemed distracted by the earlier talk of damnation, Vanessa noted, and she wished again for a moment to speak to him alone. 

After an hour had passed, Mina announced that there wasn’t much else to be done at that hour of night, and that they might all better face the task in the morning. Peter helped first Mina to her feet, and then offered Vanessa a hand, letting his fingers linger around hers once she’d stood.

Vanessa looked to Mina, whose eyes were on their joined hands. Slowly, Mina looked up at her friend, then her brother, and said pointedly to the latter, “Coming back to the house?”

Peter looked to Vanessa for guidance. She said gently, “A word, Peter, first?”

“I shan’t chaperone,” Mina said, a small trace of bitterness in her voice.

“We’ll only be a moment,” Peter assured her. “Wait at the maze’s entrance, if you like, and I’ll be along.”

“I’m going to bed,” Mina replied shortly, and left them without another word.

Vanessa felt an unpleasant clutch in her chest, as if someone had wrapped a strong hand around her heart and squeezed. In any other circumstance—in the future they had dreamed up together—Mina would have entirely ignored the main intention of Vanessa’s meeting and instead demanded to know all the details of her first day out with Peter. She’d want to know if they would have an autumn wedding, as Vanessa had always said she longed for. She’d tease Peter mercilessly for having kept them all waiting for so long. 

Vanessa hadn’t had opportunity to discuss the courtship with Mina at length, and it was clear that the weeks of secrecy and the sudden change of Vanessa’s romantic status from unwanted to soon-to-be-betrothed had hurt Mina. Vanessa vowed to speak to her friend as soon as possible, and then turned her mind back to the task at hand and gestured for Peter to join her on one of the benches arranged around the maze’s center.

“I hope we can puzzle out a proper course of action soon enough,” Peter said as they sat. “You shouldn’t have to suffer so, Van.”

“I only want to avoid causing suffering to others,” she replied.

Carefully, Peter put one arm over the back of the bench, tracing lazy circles on her upper arm with his fingers. “I’m worried for you. I won’t say I’m not.”

Vanessa smiled ruefully. “You always worry,” she said.

“I think it’s especially warranted here.”

They sat quietly for a few moments, before Vanessa found her courage again. “In the carriage,” she said softly, “when I took your hand, the voice said that…well, it more implied that I wouldn’t find solace with you.”

Peter looked solemnly at the grass beneath his shoes, refusing to speak. He withdrew his arm and clasped his hands together in his lap.

“I only caught fragments of some of the other things it said,” Vanessa continued. “Half-thoughts, the starts or ends of sentences, words here and there, images like faded pencil drawings in old books.” She paused, collecting these thoughts. “I don’t know what most of it means, Peter, but I think you might. Though I don’t dare repeat the things I heard.”

They sat in silence for a full minute, until Peter said, “I want to be here for you. I want to do what I can to protect you. I want you to be safe, and happy.”

Vanessa took his hand. “I want the same for you.” 

Neither spoke for a few minutes more, at which point Mina reappeared in a huff and demanded that Peter escort her back to the house. Vanessa hurriedly unwound her hand from his and they both stood and followed Mina out of the maze like chastened children, the entire matter remaining wholly unresolved. 

Mina stalked a few feet ahead at the maze’s exit, giving them a private moment in which to say good night. Peter paused just within the maze and caught Vanessa’s hand, pulling her close and lowering his face to hers. They kissed—their fifth in as many weeks, and entirely improper now that they were officially courting. 

When Peter pulled away, he whispered, “All in good time, Van,” and pressed a second kiss to her forehead. 

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders for a brief embrace, and then pushed him out of the maze ahead of her, to rejoin Mina. Mina offered a raised hand and Vanessa whispered her farewells to them both, and then made quickly for her own home. She crept up to bed and in the morning, it didn’t seem as if her absence in the night had been noted any more than the torment she had suffered before she’d left the house.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which nighttime discussions are painful, but fruitful.

11.

For the most part, the following summer months seemed full of sunshine and good cheer. Vanessa had taken Mina for a walk along the beach two days after their meeting in the hedge maze and they had a long discussion about the state of affairs between them. Mina admitted her jealousies, prompting Vanessa to admit that she had felt the same in the months of Mina’s courtship and engagement. By the end of the afternoon, a few ladylike tears had been shed, and all appeared to have been set right between the friends.

Vanessa was glad to have spoken so openly with Mina, both because she did not wish to cause her friend pain, and also to have her mental energies now fully focused on the acts of courtship that occurred in ensuing weeks. She and Peter spent most of their hours sitting in one another’s drawing rooms, speaking softly over tea while a parent or maid occasionally walked into the room to ensure that nothing unseemly occurred. 

It was oddly exhausting, this playing at love. On the few occasions when they sought to plan excursions beyond their neighboring properties, chaperones had to be arranged and the day’s outing vetted by both sets of parents. They went to London twice more—once to the British Museum and once to the zoo—and made perhaps a dozen trips into town for long walks and, of course, tea and biscuits. Though it was unorthodox, they were allowed to run around the grounds and the beach more or less unfettered, as long as Mina went with them. These times were some of the happiest, as it reminded them all of their shared childhood, as if time had stood still, and for a few hours, the events of the last few months could be forgotten entirely.

The events that may have raised eyebrows from the county busybodies were the clandestine nighttime meetings between the courting couple. At least once a week, if not more often, Vanessa met Peter in assorted secluded spaces, sitting close for an hour or so and discussing all manner of important topics—important to two people who were soon to be engaged to be married, anyway. 

It was on one such night when they decided to live in the neighborhood, unless a career opportunity brought Peter to London, and on another—when Peter had smuggled out a bottle of wine from the Murray family’s stores and they’d drank half of it in the space of twenty minutes—that they would have three children, preferably two girls and a boy, to mimic the arrangement with which they’d grown up.

The summer air had taken on that peculiar feel that hints at autumn, one late August evening. Vanessa and Peter met in the hedge maze at midnight, one of their preferred spots, and took a slow stroll through the green corridors, making sure to take as many wrong turns as possible to prolong the visit. 

They had just wrapped up a long discussion on the merits of damask curtains and comparatively simple china patterns. Vanessa ran over the mental checklist she kept of Matters to Discuss with Peter, and had just settled on the topic of holiday destinations when he cleared his throat and said, “There’s a new man who’s come to speak to Father. He’s a new backer, I think, for another expedition.”

“Well, Sir Malcolm can’t go now,” Vanessa joked, “or he’ll miss our engagement—our wedding, even.”

“I don’t think they’ll go for another year yet,” Peter replied with a small smile for her. He looked away again, focusing on his feet moving over the gravel path. “Anyhow—this man. He’s young, perhaps only a year or two older than us. He was at Oxford. He’s been all over the world already. Rather dashing. Good suits. Nice smile.”

“A good fit for Mina, do you think? If she’s ready?” 

Peter was quiet for a time. “I think not,” he said softly, at last, then paused.

Vanessa peered closer at his face in the shadows and squeezed his arm. “Peter, what’s wrong?” He said nothing. She pressed, “Talk to me. You can always talk to me.”

“Come with me.” He pulled her gently forward and they began walking with purpose, making for the center of the maze, where they might sit awhile. There was no moon in the sky, so everything seemed lit by the same flat, deep gray light.

When they reached the center, Peter sat with his body turned toward her, but refused to look at Vanessa’s face. He clasped each of her hands in his. “Do you remember the morning you left our house, the week after the incident?”

“Of course,” Vanessa said, unable to suppress a smirk. “It was the day we put our plans into motion.” 

“But do you remember what we discussed?”

“Well, the courtship—”

“I told you something,” Peter broke in, impatient, “or, at least, I tried to do so. I couldn’t find the words and I still can’t now. But I have to try, because you deserve a chance to end this and find something—someone—else, before we’ve passed the point of no return.”

“Peter, you’re frightening me,” Vanessa said, unwinding her hands from his and holding them in her own lap.

“I’m sorry, Van—that’s never what I meant to do. I’m just trying to say that I...I sometimes think that I…feel things, for certain people. For people that I shouldn’t. And I don’t feel certain things for people I absolutely should.”

Vanessa tried for a long moment to make sense of his words, to no avail. 

In her silence, a fretful Peter pressed, “Do you understand?”

Gently, Vanessa put a finger under his chin and lifted his head so he was looking at her. “You’ve lost me completely,” she said, with a small, encouraging smile.

“I can’t bring myself to make it any clearer,” Peter replied in an anguished whisper.

“What does your father’s business associate have to do with any of this?”

Peter looked into her eyes, his gaze so intense that she could almost hear his silent begging for her to understand. “You said that the voice told you that you wouldn’t find happiness with me," he said. "Am I remembering correctly?”

“Almost,” Vanessa replied, thinking back to their first outing. “I reached for your hand, for comfort, and it said ‘not that way.’” 

“It was right,” Peter replied grimly. “For all the evil that creature has done, my God, it was right about this. You shouldn’t walk this path with me, Van. I tried to tell you here, in the maze, the day before Mina’s wedding, but I couldn’t think of the words, so I simply pushed you away. 

“And then I nearly lost you, and I lost my resolve entirely. Mina and I sat with you for nearly two days and nights, waiting for you to come back to us, and no one knew if you’d ever wake again. We never left you alone. And I knew then that I loved you—dearly, fiercely—and I couldn’t stand to be without you.” He took her hand. “Even if it meant sacrificing some part of myself.”

His initial rejection; his trembling hands whenever he reached for her, to kiss her goodnight; the talk of this handsome new businessman with the nice smile. Vanessa understood, all at once. And it was selfish of Peter to use her to shield himself, to assume that she’d give up the more intimate side of a marriage—here, she blushed at her own thoughts, and was glad for the darkness to hide it—without first consulting her.

But he _was_ consulting her. He was telling her now, cracking open his ruined heart and showing her the truths it had hidden for only the Lord knew how long, the same as she had revealed to him and to Mina the malevolent specter that haunted her own life. What choices did they have, living as they did? Peter could live out his life as a much-talked-about bachelor, unable to escape the whispers and speculation. She could settle into a cabin somewhere as an old maid, or perhaps find an abbey that would be willing to take her in. 

Or they could take the love they felt for each other and spin it into a façade of perfect marital bliss. They had already spent months playing at what love should look like, like children who knew only fairy tales and turned it into a game of make-believe. Vanessa had been willing to walk by his side, no matter what happened, from the time they were small children. What part of that had to change? They could make the vows they had to make, and then they could keep each other safe until the end of their days.

Vanessa put her palm to Peter’s cheek. “You know my demons,” she said, “and now I know yours. I think it would be foolish to try to move forward alone.”

Without warning, Peter wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into the kind of bear hug he hadn’t given her since they were children. She held tight to his shoulders and rested her head on his chest, sure that she felt his tears on her neck.

“What an odd pairing we are,” Peter whispered, running his hand over her back. “I do love you, Van. Please never think otherwise.”

Vanessa closed her eyes and inhaled his scent—his father’s cologne, the particular aroma of the Murray home, an undercurrent of the exotic wares he handled in his father’s study, and anxious perspiration. It was only at his side that she could keep the demons away, even when she felt their leader pawing at the edges of her mind, seeking entry.

“I love you, too, Peter," she said. "Until the end of the Earth.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A question is asked and answered, and Mina is rather pleased with the result.

12.

In the final week of September, autumn arrived with a vengeance. The green leaves on the trees turned to vibrant gold, copper, and crimson all in a rush, and then promptly began littering the vast expanses of the Ives and Murray lawns with their dying flames. The nights grew colder, so much so that Peter took to bringing out a blanket for his clandestine meetings with Vanessa for them to huddle beneath. Their courtship largely moved indoors, punctuated by precious long walks when the sun shone and the wind wasn’t quite as biting.

Just before seven o’clock in the evening on the first of October, when the Ives family was set to join the Murrays for dinner, there came a polite knock at the door. Their butler admitted Peter without an announcement, as the family had assembled in the hall for the walk to their neighbors’, and, dressed for dinner and donning their outerwear in preparation for leaving the house, they all stood waiting for their guest to speak.

“I hope your mother hasn’t sent you to fetch us, Peter,” Claire fretted, allowing her husband to help her into her coat. “We were just on our way.”

“Oh, no, nothing of the sort, Mrs. Ives. But…” He looked to Vanessa with a playful smile and she felt her heart swell with giddiness. “Might I borrow Van for a moment? We’ll join you at mine before supper is served.”

Claire and Vanessa looked to Gordon, who hesitated only a beat before nodding his assent. 

Peter offered Vanessa his arm and led her into the night. There was a stiff, fairly warm breeze blowing in off the sea, though the air didn’t feel any milder. Vanessa wondered if it was colder in London.

“I’ve just gotten some good news,” Peter said, apparently unable to contain his excitement any longer. “You remember my interview with White Star?”

“Of course.” Vanessa paused and turned to him, grinning. “They offered you the position?”

“And I sent them a wire immediately, telling them I accept—I just got back from town.”

“Peter, this is fantastic!” Vanessa threw her arms around his neck. Courting be damned—he was one of her oldest friends and now he was going to be working for one of the largest shipping companies in the country, possibly the world. It wasn’t an African adventure of his own, but he’d grown up helping his father chart courses and work out assorted business ventures. It was a career he’d basically spent his life training for.

They continued walking, crossing over onto the Murray grounds now. 

“Will you have to move to London?” Vanessa asked, trying hard to keep her voice cool. She wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to leave their home county just yet, but she was eager for change. And if he went first, they could be married in a few months’ time and then she could follow him to the city—as his wife.

“Not at first,” Peter replied. Vanessa’s heart sank and it apparently showed on her face, because Peter laughed. “I’ll travel into the city every now and again. I think part of the reason they want me is for Father’s expertise, so I’ll be working on paperwork as close to him as possible, mostly. But someday…” He slung an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “We’ll get there.”

“We?” Vanessa echoed slyly.

“You’re positively minx-like tonight, Van. Perhaps I’ve chosen the wrong country girl.”

She swatted at him good-naturedly as they approached the house. Vanessa walked toward the front door, but Peter suddenly tugged on her elbow to draw her toward the hedge maze.

“Peter, we haven’t time,” Vanessa protested. 

She relented only when he promised that they didn’t have to walk the entire maze. Peter paused just outside the entrance, arranging Vanessa before him so they stood standing directly across from one another.

“I only want a quieter spot,” he said. “To talk. Only a moment more.”

“I think I’ll be signing on for a lifetime of ‘only a moment more,’” Vanessa teased.

As if he’d choreographed the entire thing, Peter fell to one knee at her words and pulled a ring topped by a large emerald from his pocket. “I hope you will,” he said, his voice surprisingly firm and unwavering. “I want to protect you and love you, Vanessa Ives, for a lifetime, and more. We both know it won’t be perfect, and it won’t often be wedded bliss, but we’ve been friends for as long as I can remember and I never want to be without you. 

“My life doesn’t make sense without you beside me, first in the house down the lane, now walking at my side—for eternity, if you’ll have me. Will you marry me, Van?”

Vanessa had been trained well enough in the art of relations with the opposite sex to know that she should deny him at least once. Playing coy was the first lesson any woman was meant to learn. But Vanessa knew she wasn’t any woman—and this was Peter, for God’s sake.

“I will,” she replied, breathless. "I will marry you." She put out her hand to help him stand, hauling him out of the grass in a most unladylike way and pressing her lips to his in a messy kiss.

He took her hand and pushed the ring onto her finger, and they stood for a moment admiring the sight of their linked hands, accented by the precious stone. Vanessa put her hand on Peter’s cheek, running her thumb over his cheekbone, and he closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers.

“We didn’t plan this part,” Vanessa whispered.

“I asked your father this morning,” Peter replied softly. “I thought it would be nice to celebrate over dinner, with everyone gathered. I asked him not to mention it to your mother, and I haven’t breathed a word to my parents.”

“Mina?”

“She caught me sneaking Grandmother’s ring out of Father’s drawer. I didn’t want to keep another secret from her.”

“It seems like quite a fortuitous day for you, Peter,” Vanessa said teasingly.

“I had no idea about the White Star job when I asked your father. It was just the icing on the wedding cake—so to speak.”

They shared a grin, and then Vanessa said, “They really won’t need you to move to London?”

Peter chuckled and kissed her forehead. “I’ll see if I can bully them into it,” he said. “Shall we tell them?”

“It still isn’t too late to run away,” she replied, but smirked and began pulling him toward the house. “I suppose we should get inside, before my mother and father begin to suspect anything unseemly. Besides, all of this excitement has me famished.”

Peter mentioned that the Murrays had given Mr. Andrews the night off, as they expected only Mr. and Mrs. Ives and Vanessa as guests, but as he reached for the door to let them into the house, it swung open immediately. Mina stood in the doorway, her face a blank mask, even as she trembled visibly with excitement. Her eyes went immediately to Vanessa’s hand in Peter’s, and once she spotted the ring, she gave a yelp of glee and embraced her best friend.

Vanessa laughed with her, saying not a word and happy to allow Mina to ask questions and answer them herself. She felt a pang of guilt, remembering the way she’d reacted to Mina’s own engagement announcement—much the same as Mina was acting now, but Vanessa’s response had been dampened by her own selfishness, and her joy had more often than not been forced. 

She resolved to be a better friend, to Mina and to any others she met over the course of her life, and to be not just a good wife, but a great one, to Peter. She would be a good daughter (and daughter-in-law), and perhaps someday she would be a good mother, too.

She entered the dining room, trailing after Mina and at Peter’s side, clasping his hand tightly. Whatever happened next, no matter what the demon might say or what she herself might do, she would live as peaceful a life as she was able with Peter Murray.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucky chapter 13, time for a wedding!

13.  
 **December 1883**

Vanessa’s wedding day dawned cold and gloomy. While her mother fluttered around the house in a state, whispering soothing words against fretting about the weather, Vanessa decided to take the clouds as a positive omen. It had alternately rained and snowed all week leading up to the day, but the transition to clouds on one’s wedding day seemed, at least to her, to hint at sunshine in one’s matrimonial future. 

There had been all the usual celebrations in the months leading up to the wedding—the official engagement announcement, the engagement ball, assorted teas and suppers with neighbors and distant relations who hoped to wish the couple well. The week before the wedding, Vanessa had tried on her wedding gown no less than three times—once for her mother, once for her mother and Mina, and once for a great-aunt on her father’s side who demanded having her say on the ensemble. The Ives home had been transformed in the last few days, as well, every available surface polished and then draped in silk.

Just the night before, they’d dined with the priest from Carfax Abbey, nearly an hour outside of his usual parish, but the closest Catholic priest, in preparation for the ceremony that would take place at eleven o’clock that morning. They would marry at the local parish church, which was technically an Anglican house of worship, but the ceremony would be Catholic.

Peter wasn’t necessarily a religious soul, and though his parents had put up a mild protest in the early autumn, they’d finally agreed to a Catholic ceremony. Peter seemed bemused by the whole thing as preparations progressed, perhaps intrigued by the mysticism of the prayers and rituals. Over that first supper back in September, too much wine had been poured for one and all, and Gordon Ives had admitted he’d been born a Protestant, himself, and converted out of “romance.” Vanessa had never known that part of her parents’ history; she found it somehow reassuring.

She awoke on her wedding day to a dim dawn and the scent of fresh flowers. Her mother had suggested lilies, and Vanessa had insisted on the addition of roses. A quantity of both had been ordered from London’s finest hothouses, and had apparently been delivered before dawn in order to put the finishing touches on the house for the reception.

Vanessa inhaled deeply and announced to Mina, who dozed beside her, “It smells like a mortuary. Has someone died?”

“Hush, Van,” Mina chided her friend, immediately awake and ready to preserve the sanctity of Vanessa’s wedding day. 

Mina had a double stake in the day going on as planned—her oldest friend was marrying her only brother, after all. But Vanessa had noticed Mina’s ferocious interest in her impending nuptials from the night of her engagement, and had thus let Mina have the final word in nearly every decision. Luckily, their tastes were nearly identical and Vanessa had been glad to allow Mina the small victories. Mina had chosen much of the menu for the feast after the ceremony, and she had agreed with Vanessa on the roses—white roses, big and bold, to serve as a backdrop for the delicate pink lilies Claire Ives had selected, and a few brash red blooms for passion.

“In five more hours,” Vanessa said to the ceiling, “I’ll be your sister.” She peered over at Mina and added, “Now you’ll never be rid of me.”

Mina put an arm over Vanessa’s chest and huddled closer. “As if you needed to marry Peter to be my sister.”

“Oh, well, then, let’s call off the entire event—by all means.”

Mina took the pillow from her side of the bed and landed a direct hit to Vanessa’s nose. Vanessa laughed and managed to wrestle the pillow away, tossing it on the floor and then settling into Mina’s arms, matching her breathing to Mina’s.

“I really do love you,” she whispered.

Mina laughed softly. “Not more than you love Peter, I hope.”

“Not more,” Vanessa agreed. “In a different way.”

A short while later, after their chatter had grown louder with excitement (and nerves), Claire knocked on the door and then let herself into the room to urge the girls out of bed to wash and dress. Mina had been given her own room for the previous night's stay, but she vanished just long enough to collect the day’s gown and her overnight valise, dressing hurriedly and then focusing her energies entirely on Vanessa. 

After a small breakfast of tea and toast, Mina and Claire helped Vanessa into her gown, and then called in a particularly talented maid to arrange her hair and veil. The bride’s hair had been carefully brushed and curled, hanging long and loose under the veil that hung to her waist at the front and trailed down her spine at the back, edged in a pretty, floral-patterned lace. The dress was new, from a dressmaker in London, a slightly more daring cut that left Vanessa’s shoulders largely exposed under the veil, then fell to the floor in panels of layered silk and lace.

By ten o’clock, everything was ready. Vanessa had tossed the veil back over her head, as she didn’t enjoy seeing the world through a haze. Claire took a step back to admire her daughter and then, overcome, pulled Vanessa into a tight embrace and sobbed with mingled joy and anguish. Once Vanessa had calmed her mother down, mostly by whispering platitudes about how, after the honeymoon trip to Paris, she wouldn’t be leaving the county anytime soon, and nothing really need change in their relationship, Claire dried her eyes on a spare handkerchief and then excused herself to freshen up.

“I should go, as well,” Mina said, rising from the spot on the bed she’d occupied for most of the morning’s festivities. “Mother will be in a state, and the Murray men aren’t known for their sensitivity.”

Vanessa smirked. “Is that a subtle warning, Mina mine?”

“Not at all. As long as we Murray women stick together, you’ll have a long, happy life in our family.” Mina came forward to embrace Vanessa once more, then took her leave.

Vanessa knew she wouldn’t have much more time alone that day. Soon, they would leave for the church, and by noon, she would be Mrs. Peter Murray, presumably never to be alone again. She sat heavily on her unmade bed in her childhood room, saying a silent goodbye to the belongings that had seen her to this moment—the dolls she so hated, the vanity with its carefully arranged trinkets and perfumes, the windows that opened to let in the sea breeze in summer and closed tight against the wind and the snow in winter. She could always come back here, but it would never be the same.

Her eyes fell on the crucifix on the wall. She hadn’t dared kneel before it since the voice had begun haunting her. She was in desperate need of God’s guidance, but she felt that reaching out to Him would only open the conduit for the Other who stalked her from the darkness. She hadn’t heard the voice in months, not since the engagement, and she didn’t wish to tempt it. 

Vanessa rose and crossed the room to the crucifix, placing a gentle hand over the carefully carved wood. She closed her eyes, but kept her mind blank. Nothing spoke; no one came to her. She felt peace, tinged with sadness; she felt empty, as if God had turned His back on her once and for all. But that couldn’t be—could it?

“Vanessa, darling?” 

She turned and saw her father standing in her doorway, his forehead creased with worry, undoubtedly bearing the brunt of the stressors of the day. Vanessa forced a grin and dropped her hand from the wall.

“Time to go already?” she asked cheerfully. She twirled slowly for her father, holding out her hands and shrugging, a silent plea for approval.

“You look radiant,” Gordon said, then wiped a hand over his eyes. “Goodness, I’m being silly. Come along, now—and no more tears. I’m outlawing them in this house. This is a happy day. Your mother’s driving me to the brink of madness with her tears, and I fear they’re catching.”

He held out his hand and Vanessa came around her bed to take it. She squeezed his fingers gently and kept her smile in place. “A happy day,” she repeated, then tugged him out of the room and toward the stairs, just as she’d dragged him along the shore when she was a child intent on collecting seashells. 

They’d rented a carriage far grander than their own for the day, and once Vanessa, her gown, and her veil had been carefully arranged within, her mother and father followed. The church was only ten minutes away by carriage, about halfway between the Ives house and town, and when the horses came to a halt at the doors, there were already guests milling about the churchyard and the little cemetery beside the rectory. 

Gordon alighted first, rather dashing in a fine new suit, and then helped first his wife and then his daughter from the carriage. There were murmurs of approval from the early guests who spotted Vanessa before she entered the church to await the appointed hour.

Vanessa knelt with the priest and her parents in the small parson’s office at the front of the church and hazarded a short prayer—no one, thankfully, answered. Once that was done, the priest gave her a bright smile and wished her luck, then went back out to prepare. Her father went outside to greet the guests, giving mother and daughter a few more moments alone, and when it seemed the noise of conversation outside and in the church had grown to a cacophony, Claire went out to join him.

Vanessa moved to the window that overlooked the front of the church, old, warped glass that gave only the impression of human bodies. She watched the last of the arrivals, able to distinguish only her parents from the others, and then noting the Murray carriage. Sir Malcolm stepped from the carriage and gallantly offered his wife and daughter his hand. 

Peter climbed out last. It was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding, but Vanessa was fairly certain it didn’t work the other way around. He wore a heather gray suit, white gloves, and, as far as she could tell, the most fantastic top hat she’d ever seen. His father put a hand on his shoulder to halt his progress, leaned close to say something, and then shook Peter’s hand. Peter nodded, then greeted Gordon and Claire.

It was just before eleven o’clock. There was a faint knock on the door, and Vanessa opened it just enough to peer out. Her father was standing in the hall, beaming.

“Ready, sweetheart?”

Vanessa’s stomach tied itself into knots. She suddenly didn’t trust her voice, so she only nodded. Her father helped her readjust her veil in front of her face and over the back of her dress, then offered her his arm and walked her to the double doors that led into the chapel. The flower girl and ring bearer—Murray cousins—had already assembled. Mina also stood waiting, in her role as maid of honor, holding Vanessa’s bouquet of lilies and white roses and a smaller bouquet for herself. Peter’s school friend, Arthur Godalming, was there as well, the son of a local lord and Peter’s best man. 

Vanessa released her father just long enough to greet Mina, palm to palm, and to shake Arthur’s hand in greeting. She’d only met him a handful of times, at various Murray functions, but he was a good man. She couldn’t help but think that perhaps he would make a nice match for Mina, once she felt ready to give love another chance.

Vanessa took her place at her father’s side, looping her arm through his once more. From within the chapel came the sound of the bridal march, and Vanessa’s grip on her father’s arm tightened. He placed his hand over hers reassuringly. 

The usher waiting at the door looked at the party expectantly. Mina glanced back at Vanessa and grinned. Vanessa took a breath, grinned back, and then gave the usher a small nod. The doors opened, the assembled guests rose, and the procession began.

It wasn’t a very long walk—not nearly enough time for a bride to change her mind, or anything so dramatic as that. And anyway, this was the moment she and Peter had been planning for, and had actively worked toward. This was the moment the entire county had seen as an eventuality from the time they were small: Peter and Vanessa, just the same age, neighbors, both from good families, both reserved and thoughtful, longtime friends that had blossomed into a rather handsome couple. 

Of course, no one else could guess at the crosses each had to bear; Vanessa had to admit to herself, here and now, in a house of God and on her own wedding day, that Peter’s secret had been almost too much for her to agree to help him carry. But she loved him, and he obviously loved her. Some things would be insurmountable, but to run from them now, she felt, would be cowardice. 

Vanessa kept her head up and facing forward, only occasionally glancing at relatives or friends and offering a small nod in greeting as she traveled down the aisle. She set a serene smile on her face and avoided looking at Peter entirely until they were mere steps apart, when she finally caught his eye and was surprised—and pleased—to find him gazing at her in awe. She heard her mother sniffling in the front row, but didn’t dare look for fear of catching her mother's tears, as her father had warned.

She paused at the end of the aisle and faced her father, who held her shoulders and placed a gentle kiss on each cheek, then took her hand and offered it to Peter. Peter’s gloved hand was steady as he slipped his fingers through hers and helped her up the last few steps to the altar. Just as he had when they’d met to discuss their courtship, he winked.

The knots in her stomach undid themselves and Vanessa felt her heart settle into a calm, steady rhythm. They had planned this; they had worked for this; they were partners, walking together for all of eternity. Vanessa nearly laughed with the absurdity of it all, that they had managed to plot the entire course of the rest of their lives and had successfully brought it to fruition. 

The rest of the ceremony was unremarkable, just as Vanessa would have it be. They kneeled and stood as directed, and bowed their heads in prayer. Vanessa felt Peter’s eyes on her through most of the talking and praying, and her face warmed with the obvious admiration in his eyes. She would turn her head slightly and catch him with his head tilted slightly toward her, so he might spy her in his peripheral vision, or flat-out turned to face her when the ceremony allowed. 

Perhaps it wouldn’t all be wedded bliss, as he’d said months ago. But if Peter vowed just to look at her everyday the way he was in this moment, Vanessa felt she would be a very happy wife, indeed.

They recited their vows after the priest, he declared them wed, and finally, Peter lifted her veil and kissed her. It wasn’t anything gossip-worthy, though it certainly wasn’t the chaste peck Vanessa had witnessed at other local weddings, and she clasped both his hands in hers and leaned closer, savoring every second of it.

Afterward, as the wedding march filled the chapel, the newly minted Mr. and Mrs. Murray walked back down the aisle, collecting congratulations and well wishes as they went. Peter helped Vanessa into the grand carriage her parents had rented, and they leaned out the window together to wave at their guests. 

“I feel like the queen,” Vanessa said to Peter, grinning as she tried out her most delicate royal wave.

Peter wrapped an arm around her waist, out of sight of the revelers, and whispered in her ear, “You are a queen.”

Any other day, Vanessa would have laughed off his comment as farce. But when she turned to look at him, she saw that he would mean every word he said that day. It may have been a marriage of convenience in many ways, protecting both their virtues and their reputations, but their wedding day still meant something to them both. Vanessa closed the gap between them to kiss him once more, much to the delight of the crowd. 

“Enough of that now!” Sir Malcolm called out jovially, garnering more laughter from the assembled. As if they had been awaiting this cue, the wedding carriage moved off and the guests began to arrange themselves into shared cabs or walking parties. The parents of the couple would ride together in the Murray carriage, while Mina and a few other relations would ride with Lord Godalming in his.

Alone at last, Vanessa fell back onto the carriage seat and put her hands over her eyes. A moment later, she felt Peter leaning back beside her, pressing his shoulder to hers.

Peter cleared his throat and asked, “Is everything all right, Mrs. Murray?” He gently took her wrist to pull her hand from her eye, and found her grinning.

“Fine. Very well. Simply overwhelming.” She sat up suddenly, taking Peter’s hands in hers, and said with a lilt to her voice, “Peter. We’re married.”

“We’ve done it,” Peter said, grinning in reply. “Exactly as everyone always said we would.”

“Everyone but you,” Vanessa said. Peter’s look turned quizzical, and she elaborated, “You always said you’d be off in Africa—far too busy to marry me, one assumes.”

Peter’s face reddened with embarrassment. “The talk of a child,” he assured her, raising her hand to his lips and kissing first her knuckles, then her palm through her long gloves. “I’m sorry I was so insufferable for so long. Though I suppose every adolescent goes through such a time.”

“You said it to me again in the hedge maze, just before Mina’s wedding,” Vanessa pointed out indignantly, “that she would be off in India and you’d be with your father God only knew where.”

“As I said, the talk of a child.”

“Or perhaps just a foolish young man.”

“Are we already quarreling?”

Vanessa heaved a sigh. “Not seriously. It was only a sore spot.”

“Might I make it up to you?” 

“I doubt it.”

“Permit me to try?”

Vanessa considered her new husband’s face, then smirked and nodded. Peter, still holding her hand in his, kissed her knuckles again, then gently rolled down the glove she wore on her right hand and kissed the delicate flesh of the inside of her wrist. He trailed his lips up her arm to the elbow, then put his hand on the back of her head and guided their lips together.

Once they’d broken apart, Vanessa pronounced, “An adequate attempt.”

“I can see we’re at an impasse,” Peter replied, and gave her a final, chaste kiss on the lips. “And it seems we’ve arrived at our feast.”

The carriage slowed, then came to a halt outside the Ives home. A few of the guests had already arrived, arranging care of their horses and carriages with the groom or strolling the grounds in pairs and small groups. Their carriage driver climbed down from his perch and opened the door for the newlyweds.

“After how long do you think it’s polite to ask everyone to leave us alone?” Vanessa asked Peter under her breath.

“Let’s say one hour to start, and edit accordingly.” Peter climbed from the carriage first, then took the driver’s place holding the door and offered his bride a hand. “Dearest?”

It was quite the fete, if Vanessa was to be honest, and she rather enjoyed herself, even as what was meant to be a fairly respectable luncheon dragged on into suppertime. The food was almost entirely gone by the early afternoon, though there seemed an endless supply of wine and spirits, and the string quartet Gordon Ives had hired showed no signs of stopping, even as night fell. 

As long as there was music and drink, most guests seemed reluctant to leave. As Vanessa made her sixth round of the room, accepting congratulations and small wedding gifts as she went, she realized she no longer minded. She’d been waiting for a moment alone with Peter, to discuss what their new life together might look like, but she was having far too nice a time to let talk of such logistics intrude.

At last, guests began to filter out of the house, headed for suppers elsewhere, and those that remained took the hint when Gordon signaled for the quartet to pack up their things and receive payment before taking their leave. The following morning, Vanessa and Peter would set off for Paris, a proper Continental honeymoon arranged for by Sir Malcolm. But it had been decided that the newlyweds would pass the night in the Ives home, in a rather grand guest room on the ground floor. Their trunks and suitcases had been stacked there that evening, to allow for ease in their early departure the following day.

Once Claire had politely ushered all the other guests from the house, save the Murrays, the two newly joined families gathered in the sitting room for a final sip of brandy. Vanessa and Peter arranged themselves on the windowseat overlooking the front lawn, their heads bowed together in quiet discussion, as their respective families took seats and talked amongst themselves, mostly about the wonder of the day, so long awaited and finally having come to pass. Eventually, Vanessa caught Mina’s eye and subtly beckoned her over, and Mina perched on the armchair nearest the window to talk to the couple.

After another hour, Sir Malcolm rose and cleared his throat, catching the attention of all in the room. “I believe it’s time my family and I made for home.” 

Gladys Murray rose immediately, thanking Gordon and Claire for their hospitality, and then glanced at the trio in the window. “Mina, dear?”

“Yes, Mother.” Mina stood, embracing first her brother, and then her friend. “I don’t think I’ll see you before you leave tomorrow, so have a happy trip. And do send me a note or two.”

“We’ll buy you something beautiful and French,” Vanessa promised. She gave Mina’s hand one last squeeze, then came forward to accept farewells from the Murrays. 

Gordon saw their guests to the door, as Claire led the newlyweds out of the parlor and paused at the foot of the stairs. “Mr. Ives and I will retire now, so you might have a bit more…privacy,” she said, and reddened slightly. “Help yourselves to anything you like, of course—there’s certainly a bit of food left from lunch, and plenty of wine.”

“Perhaps just one more glass of the port,” Vanessa mused, and glanced at Peter, who nodded in agreement. 

Once the Murrays had gone, Gordon returned to the group, and another round of wishes for a good night were exchanged. He turned down the gas lamps in the front hall, leaving only the fire in the sitting room and a few candles burning. Pausing only once more to kiss his daughter’s cheek, Gordon then followed his wife upstairs. 

Vanessa took Peter’s hand, waiting, and only when they’d heard the sure thump of a closed door did she lead him back into the sitting room for a final, celebratory drink.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~wedding night~
> 
> (Not so much sexy as angsty, because they are huge nerds.)

14.

They forsook the assorted seats (and glasses), instead sitting on the hearth rug with the last of a bottle of port between them. Vanessa removed her veil and left it flung over the back of the sofa like a discarded blanket, then sat cross-legged before the wine bottle and made sure to arrange her skirts well away from the roaring fire. 

Peter immediately removed his shoes and gloves and collapsed onto the rug, heaving a sigh of relief. Vanessa chuckled fondly at his antics, then gestured for him to come closer. He laid his head in her lap, which had more or less become a mountain of white silk and lace, and they passed the bottle back and forth—carefully, so as to avoid any stains on the gown—and hardly spoke, enjoying the quiet.

“Shall we retire, sir?” Vanessa asked after a time, feeling heavy with good wine and absolute exhaustion. 

“We do have an early start tomorrow,” Peter murmured. His eyes were closed, his head still cradled in her lap. The fire had died down, the bottle of port was done, and the house was entirely silent.

She pushed him up by the shoulders, groaning with mock exertion. “Come along, then, you.” 

Peter stood, with much complaint, and Vanessa flung herself to her feet in a most undignified manner. She would have toppled over had Peter not caught her waist to steady her. There was a pause, ever so brief, and then he seized the moment to lower his head and kiss her. Vanessa reciprocated, putting her hand on his head to pull him closer, pushing them further than they’d thus far dared go. She fit the line of her body to his and then, carefully, she parted his lips with hers, inviting him to follow her lead. 

After a moment of hesitation, she felt Peter’s lips closing over her bottom lip. She pressed her chest to his and, instead of retreating, as she half-expected him to, he wrapped his arms around her waist and sighed. Vanessa pulled away just enough to catch a breath, then caught his head in both of her hands and leaned in again.

Peter ran his hands up over her back and onto her shoulders, then broke the kiss to bring his lips to her neck. He trailed three tentative kisses down to her collarbone, and then began again at the top, with more urgency.

“Peter,” she sighed, rolling her head to the side to allow him more skin to explore. She ran her fingers over his cheek and down to his neck, and whispered, “Perhaps it’s time we found a more private spot?”

“Do you have such a spot in mind?” Peter replied, catching her lips again with his before she could respond.

Vanessa gently pushed him away and, a bit breathless, replied, “I thought out marital bed might do nicely.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Quite right.”

He kissed her once more, for good measure, then set about putting the fire out. Vanessa placed the empty wine bottle on the mantle and collected her veil from the sofa, as well as Peter’s gloves and shoes from the floor, snuffing candles as she passed them. When they were left in total darkness, Vanessa took Peter’s hand and led him toward the guest room.

Vanessa set Peter’s shoes by the door, then laid her veil and his gloves over the trunk at the foot of the bed. She lit a candle at the bedside, and then hesitated. She knew full well what was meant to occur on one’s wedding night, but despite the advances they’d made in the other room, now that she was locked away in a room, alone with Peter, her lawful husband, she wasn’t quite sure how to proceed.

Peter stood across the bed, watching her. When she met his gaze, he looked away and shrugged out of his suit jacket. “I suppose we can…dress? For bed?”

Vanessa considered this suggestion, then nodded in agreement. “But can you kiss me again first?” she asked, as shy as she’d ever been with him.

He grinned and came around the bed quickly, his stocking feet padding quietly across the hardwood floor. “All you ever need do is ask, and I’ll oblige,” he said, taking her in his arms again. 

The kiss began exactly where they had left off in the sitting room, bolder now that they’d overcome the first barrier of anxiety, though neither was quite sure what was meant to come after. What they lacked in experience they more than made up for in effort, and it was only for need of air that they broke apart. Vanessa, still wrapped in his arms, put a hand first to her chest, and then to his, gratified to find that both their hearts were racing.

“May I trouble you with another request?” Vanessa asked softly.

“Anything,” Peter replied, resting his cheek against hers, “as long as you plan to ask that I kiss you again.”

She laughed and swatted his shoulder. “In a moment. For now, I require assistance getting free of this gown.”

The mood changed instantly with her words. Peter took a small step away, though he kept his hands on her waist. His eyes flicked from her face to her gown, and Vanessa couldn’t quite read his expression. It was part unease, part confusion—and part longing. 

“How…?” His voice trailed off as he gestured helplessly at the gown.

Vanessa turned slowly and pulled her hair over her shoulder. “It’s all buttons down the back,” she explained, sheepish again. “And then there’s the corset.” She had meant for this activity to be at least partly a seduction, but as she felt herself losing her nerve, Vanessa added in a rush, “I’m sorry, I can ask a maid for assistance instead—perhaps someone will still be up.”

“Nonsense,” Peter managed, though his voice cracked. He put his hands to the top button on the back of the gown, running his thumb over her bare upper back. “We promised to care for each other, until death do we part. A man can certainly undo his wife’s—eh—garments, when she needs.”

Vanessa murmured her thanks and Peter made blessedly quick work of loosening the gown. The corset was a bit more of an exercise in patience, but once the bodice loosened, Vanessa held the fabric to her chest, her grip like a vice, and turned back to Peter with as natural a smile as she could muster. She was acutely aware that she could very easily be nude in front of her oldest friend-turned-nervous husband with one shrug.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I’ll just—I’m sorry, I just need to collect my nightgown from my valise—”

“Of course. I’m sorry, I’m in your way. Wait, I can get it for—”

“No, that one, there.”

“I’ll just move—right. Here you are.”

Peter presented her with the proper case, and Vanessa retreated behind the changing screen set in the corner of the room. It seemed ridiculous to do so, but they’d both become so flustered that she didn’t wish to make it any worse by parading around the bedroom half nude. Where there had been a playful intimacy in the air only moments earlier in the sitting room, there seemed now only to hang an unbecoming awkwardness. 

She shimmied out of the day’s clothing and hurriedly slipped into her nightgown, tossing the wedding gown over the top of the screen and collecting her stockings, garters, and assorted other underthings for washing or packing. When she reemerged, Peter slipped past her, carrying his pajamas, to change behind the screen, as well. 

Vanessa quickly packed what she could and set aside anything that would be in need of laundering, then returned to the bedside and pulled down the covers. She assured herself it wouldn’t be too forward to await her husband in the bed they had every right to share, so she climbed beneath the sheets and duvet and clasped her hands together, trying not to feel that she was waiting for an appointment when the other party had run terribly late. 

Peter reappeared a few minutes later, carefully hanging his jacket and suit pants and setting the rest of his clothing on top of his trunk. His smile for Vanessa was forced, she thought, and she feared she could only summon a grimace in return. He was barefoot and looked almost ridiculously vulnerable, and it struck Vanessa that in all their years of friendship, she’d never seen Peter in pajamas, not even under a dressing gown. 

He took two steps toward the bed, then glanced at the bedroom window and moved in that direction, instead.

“Look, Van,” he noted, “it’s snowing.”

She bit back a rather snide remark about such things happening in winter, and instead climbed out of bed and joined him at the window. The precipitation of the past week had succeeded only in creating an ugly slush and a fair amount of mud, but the snow now appeared as fat flakes, already coating the frozen earth.

Vanessa smiled softly, genuinely pleased with the sight. “It’s beautiful.”

“You always have loved the snow.”

“Only when there’s a drift large enough to shove you into.”

Vanessa smirked as Peter chuckled with merriment. He put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the crown of her head; she placed a hand on his chest and rested her head against his shoulder. It struck her again how well-suited they were. Despite any other incompatibilities, not only did they share most interests, but they fit. It felt perfectly natural to be standing at Peter’s side, cozy under his arm.

“Peter?”

He hummed in response, but kept is eyes on the falling snow.

“We don’t have to—do anything,” Vanessa said gently. “Not tonight. If you aren’t ready.”

He went still, holding his breath. Vanessa put a hand on his cheek and turned his face so he was looking at her. He’d gone pale, as well, with disquiet.

“To speak frankly—and I think we can, especially now—I’m not entirely sure I’m ready, either,” she admitted in a whisper. “I’m willing to try. But I don’t want anything to be uncomfortable, not tonight. It’s been a nearly perfect day, and I wouldn’t have it spoiled for anything.”

Peter exhaled heavily and rested his forehead against hers. “What did I do to deserve you, Vanessa Ives?”

“Murray,” she corrected him, and tapped his cheek with a single finger. “And hush.”

She guided him close enough to kiss, then gestured for him to join her in bed. He caught her before she got there, kissing her again and letting his hand travel over her hip. He guided her to the bed, where they huddled beneath the duvet and continued their tentative explorations of each other’s boundaries. 

They passed the night curled together in the guest bed, mostly talking—about their honeymoon plans, about the life they would start once they returned to England, about the frost on the window and the snow on the ground—and often kissing. Neither noticed when they finally fell quiet, and then drifted off to sleep, Vanessa’s head on Peter’s chest, their fingers entwined. It felt entirely natural.


End file.
